Men's BBall: Positive Side of James Johnson 2014-2015

I originally posted this as a comment on the What to do with James Johnson thread but I decided I would rather it get some run as the potential positives for next year with JJ as the head coach.

Win-Loss record aside, late season improvement aside for being a turtle shell:

Salary
We couldn't afford to up the ante to keep an offensive line coach that needed an extra $180K to potentially stay on the football staff. A coach that in one year showed great promise in recruiting and improvement in the performance of his current players.

How do you expect to cover $1mil in ex-coaches salaries, plus at least $3.5 million ($2 million/$1.5 million staff) for a new coach that can compete with Coach K, Williams, Boeheim ....and Dixon? I will give you the first three and that Dixon is working towards that level. How many coaches are there in the country that I would put on the level of those first three? Self at Kansas, Calipari at Kentucky, Pitino at Louisville, Izzo at MSU, Donovan at Florida. Miller at Arizona is working that way along with SDSU's Miller and possibly Marshall from Wichita State. These are the only coaches that really could consistently compete with the three legends listed. Oh wait, you have to add Pitino to the opponent's list for next year.

This argument was then swapped to there are 200 mid-major coaches that would be candidates to replace him. I would argue that the list of viable candidates that could improve our chances of competing at the top of the ACC is significantly shorter than that and of that pool of candidates there is maybe a handful that would want to come into Virginia Tech with how the Greenberg situation was handled, how James Johnson would be handled 2 years into a 5 year contract and what the expectations versus reality is with our fan base. I wrote the column about the candidates before we closed the season relatively competitive based on the roster of the team by then.
Here it is:
http://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2014/january/30/mens-basketball-potent...

Now onto why I think giving JJ next year as his make or break season is reasonable at this point.
Lets look at this season to see why I might expect us to legitimately compete for a winning record and a .500 conference record next season. I wont touch last season because the use of Erick Greene did nothing but hamper this program not that I begrudge him wanting to put on a show to help his draft stock. This season we went a dreadful 9-21, a 9-21 that most of the analysts expected at the beginning of the season, even our own Brian M predicted this kind of record but now is the End of All Ends that we achieved it.

The out of conference slate saw a relatively healthy Virginia Tech team go 7-5. There were two really bad losses to bad teams and two bad losses to very good teams. We lost by 1 point to USC Upstate to start the season. Bad loss, bad team so a 1 basket improvement is needed to change this result. Our next loss came to the then #1 team in the country Michigan State. We were totally outclassed in this game. We followed that with another 1 point loss to Seton Hall who finished with a .500 record and just upset their conference #1 seed, Villanova, in the Big East Conference Tournament. Another game that needed a one basket improvement. The game winning free throw came with four seconds left. Our next loss was against VCU, where we couldn't seem to get out of our own way against the HAVOC defense. Blowout loss to a 24-7 team. Our last out of conference loss came to UNC-Greensboro by 3 points. This loss came down to Devin missing a free throw that would have tied it with less than ten seconds to play and the
subsequent foul led to two free throws. Wood misses a three at the buzzer that would have tied the game. Five losses, two large and three by one possession. So far nothing to cry about. A solid win over WVU after a furious comeback, and then we won the other games we were expected to win, including beating a potentially NIT bound Radford by 25.

The record in the ACC is bad, it would require a seven game improvement in conference to reach .500 so lets focus on this year against the ACC. First Miami game, competitive, win, team health though has just become a major problem.

Injuries/Missed Games
Adam Smith's first game back from his original injury, will play in five total ACC contests before being shut down. He was averaging 11 points per game which wasn't there for most of ACC play.

Barksdale sits out this game as it was the first after his initial injury, misses six more ACC games and plays less than 10 minutes in another four. Despite this, he still averaged 7.6 PPG during ACC play so you were missing that for approximately half of the conference slate.

Raines is solidly in JJ's doghouse and will not play in seven of the eighteen ACC games between discipline and injury. In the eleven games he played, he was in for a grand total of 182 minutes so less than half of each game from a Senior. He contributed 60 points during this stretch, or 5.5 per game.

Emelogu missed six ACC contests with injuries. That's about 11 points per game sitting on the second row for a third of the conference slate.

Marshall Wood sat out five games of the ACC slate, that's 4 PPG missing almost a third of the conference slate.

There were a few other onesies here and there on the seven other guys on the roster which includes three walk-on athletes in Beyer, Johnston, and Donlon. Those three represented a grand total of about four points per game this year, so you had to rely on four players in Eddie, JVZ, Wilson and Thompson to provide you the majority of your scoring during ACC play. A senior, a sophomore and two freshmen and throw another body on the court.
This is how much of a different team we were OOC versus ACC slate.

ACC Slate

We beat Miami twice. Only wins. Nothing to write home about.

We lost to Syracuse, FSU, BC, MDx2, Duke and UVA by at least 17 points. All very ugly, the four game stretch the most so. It was this same four game stretch though when the majority of the above players were all out at the same time so JJ had four scholarship players to try to play against ACC opponents. One loss to GT by 11 was out last double digit loss. That's eight really bad losses. Pretty tough.

We lost the rest of our ACC slate by three possessions or less, most of these games that went down to the final minutes and free throws. BC by three. One possession. Clemson by 7. Three possessions. Notre Dame by 7. Three possessions. Wake Forest by 6. Two possessions. Pitt in 2OT by five. Two possessions. UVA by four. 2 possessions. NC State by 7. Three possessions. UNC by 4. Two possessions and a really bad charge call.

All through this, especially towards the end, I saw JJ coaching and if anything showing more fire than at any point in the previous two years. Did it end in results that we wanted as fans? No, but were there obvious improvements, especially in the younger players. Yes to everything other than JVZ at the foul line. But JVZ in the paint did improve dramatically. He averaged over 10 points per game the final eight games of the season. He started to show flashes of getting the ball to the hoop. Devin was named to the ACC All Freshmen team. Most of this was because of how well be improved during ACC play.

The last point that seemingly is being argued is why the new players are so important. Well, next year with the exodus of Eddie and Raines, you will have five new players to help fill the gap. Will the three new freshmen necessarily play major roles like the three this year did? I hope not but its possible since they are pure shooters. What they will do is provide guys like Emelogu, Thompson and Wood those ten to twelve minutes a game rest that can mean the difference in three possession games in the final minutes. I don't know what to expect between Wilson and Mueller next year but I cant see Devin averaging 34 minutes a game again either. How will Kirby play into supporting JVZ and Barksdale? I am not sure but it will be nice to have someone backing them up. Do the walk-ons get crazy ovations because they just barely make it into a few games? I hope so. We haven't even discussed the potential for Isiah Ford to impact ACC play because I don't know what they will work out there but the kid did score
59 points in at least one game this year in high school.

Having the legs to play JJ's style of play over the course of an entire season because the team isn't exhausted will be a huge improvement. Will we then get to see JJ's identity? I think we will, especially in the out of conference slate. Do I think that setting the bar for JJ at a .500 record is realistic? Yes, if he cant get us competitive with a full roster finally at his disposal then its time to find the coach that will.

Look at the rest of the ACC and how they finished the season this year to also show why I think we can be middle of the pack next season. The top four teams in the conference finished with 13 conference wins or better (coached by all three legends above and Tony Bennett, who I put up there with Dixon as a working towards status) Dixon brought Pitt in with 11 conference wins. The only other team in conference with a winning record was Clemson at 10-8 behind the play of K.J McDaniels, who I expect to skip his senior season and go pro. They don't have a solid back up behind him in my opinion. I would expect Louisville to finish in this higher group of teams next year.

The rest of the conference finished at .500 or worse. That's nine out of fifteen teams at an even mark. Eight with the removal of Maryland. Six of those teams finished 6-12 or worse including us. Do I think that with a full roster and already having played over half the conference slate this year to within three possessions that JJ and his staff can get this team to .500? I think they will come daringly close if not do it. Is this optimism? Sure. But its also possible that with a high pressure defense that should create turnovers and lead to more fast paced offensive possessions that this team will run some people out of the gym or at least overcome a three possession difference.

Recruiting
According to 247Sports, JJ has the 55th class in the country with Justin Bibbs now showing as a four star recruit. Is 55th something to toot our horn about? No, its 10th in the ACC. Is that more impressive considering how bad we have been? Absolutely, it shows that he is able to convince players that could have gone to any Division I school on a full ride that Virginia Tech is the place to be. These three aren't home grown fans either. All three are from out of state.

Next year he already had one commitment from an in state three star and is working on two more kids at Oak Hill, perennially one of the top academy's for talent in the country. One of those kids is the little brother of current NBA player Brandon Jennings and is supposed to be a better ball handler than his older brother who is averaging 16.5 points and 8 assists a game for the Pistons. So there are signs of life under all this dramatic negativity. I say give the man a chance to deliver results next year along with a top 30 recruiting class.