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Breaking news: Steve Roccoforte fired as Lamar Basketball Head Coach


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I was at the John Gray Center the day that LU hired Tom Abatemarco.  I remember watching Roccoforte climb in the car with him when the press conference was over and they left to go recruit Roc's friend Kevin "Tree" Newman who was at Kilgore JC (or somewhere like that).  He was the first recruit of the Abatemarco era and he was a bust!  Unfortunately for Roc, LU and the fans, his first 5 years as head coach has been like that first recruit he brought to LU in 1987.
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As much as I have been against roc for his entire career I will say this.  I am sick and tired of every coach for the last 20 years feeling like they have to come in and win immediately. We need someone to come in and BUILD our program. Yes I said build because all we have is a foundation right now.  That foundation consists of a University with the resources to compete in the conference they reside in and that is it.  The reason I bring all of this up is I would like to see someone be a coach at Lamar for 7 or 8 years and put a strategy in place and see it out.  I feel like roc felt the need to win immediately which is why many jucos were brought in.  I don't think that is the answer at this level of basketball.  I think roc is getting fired and I am not against him being fired.  With that said if he does stay we all need to be prepared to support him and it would be interesting to see if that another year would change anything.
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H#!! no. If a coach can't win in the SLC by year 5 he need to be gone. Again we are talking about the SLC who's NCAA tournament team is in a play-in game. Five years is long enough and I have supported Coach Roc from the beginning.

If you are going to judge one coach by certain standards then everyone should be judged equally.

For one reason or another he didn't get the job done. 7-8 years to win in the SLC in ridiculous.

Should a new coach feel the need to win immediately? No, but having a freshman recruiting class and coaching them thru their senior years and adding talent around them is plenty of time.

Ronnie Arrow, Bob Marlin, Brooks Thompson and Dave Simmons are a few people who have coached in the SLC and it didn't take 7-8 season to get their teams in to post season play.

Lamar has the best resources for MBB in the SLC.



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[quote name="bigred360" post="982528" timestamp="1300128992"]
H#!! no. If a coach can't win in the SLC by year 5 he need to be gone. Again we are talking about the SLC who's NCAA tournament team is in a play-in game. Five years is long enough and I have supported Coach Roc from the beginning.

If you are going to judge one coach by certain standards then everyone should be judged equally.

For one reason or another he didn't get the job done. 7-8 years to win in the SLC in ridiculous.

Should a new coach feel the need to win immediately? No, but having a freshman recruiting class and coaching them thru their senior years and adding talent around them is plenty of time.

Ronnie Arrow, Bob Marlin, Brooks Thompson and Dave Simmons are a few people who have coached in the SLC and it didn't take 7-8 season to get their teams in to post season play.

Lamar has the best resources for MBB in the SLC.




[/quote]

I agree with you and think he is gone but be prepared.  You never know.

I also agree with you in saying he should be gone.  He never put the plan in place where you have a good freshman class full of freshman.  It was all jucos all the time. I just feel like the next guy needs to be a non juco recruiter or at least not an only juco recruiter like roc!
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[quote name="HoopInsider_Cooper" post="982459" timestamp="1300119165"]
The year before Giovanne left, a press conference was called to announce he was staying. It has happened before, but who knows.

The political mess in that building is in full effect. Why some people are still on staff making over $100K and doing nothing is beside me...I am going to ask that today.
[/quote]

There is more than just one but I believe I know the main one you are talking about. Ask the question Coop!!!
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[quote name="sleepy" post="982533" timestamp="1300129756"]I also agree with you in saying he should be gone.  He never put the plan in place where you have a good freshman class full of freshman.  It was all jucos all the time. I just feel like the next guy needs to be a non juco recruiter or at least not an only juco recruiter like roc!
[/quote]

You do realize that his starting five down the stretch consisted of the following:

C - Custer (recruited out of HS) Sr.
PF- Brown (recruited out of HS) So.
G - Lamb (JUCO) Jr.
G - Minor (recruited out of HS) So.
G - Miles (recruited out of HS) Jr.

Plus Osas (recruited out of HS) Fr. played a bigger role off the bench and Harper (recruited out of HS) Jr. played 20+ minutes a game. So really only Lamb and James saw a lot of PT from the JUCO ranks. Thats 6 HS kids and 2 JUCOs in his 8 man rotation that he finally stuck with. Sure looks to me like the guy recruits out of HS pretty evenly. This past year was skewed with JUCO talent because the previous two years he recruited alot of HS kids and he felt the urgency to win now!!!
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