I still can't believe one short year ago, after the 2nd round loss to Georgia in Minneapolis (the one where the sisters couldn't hit a shot if their collective lives depended on it), some fans were beginning to consider calling for Fennelly's head, as a guy that was never gonna get it done. JP then put the end to such talk by giving Fennelly the lifetime contract. IMO one of the smarter moves JP's made as AD. As far as I'm concerned, Fennelly earned that lifetime contract this season. He could have packed it in after he lost Weiben and Ross, but instead pressed his team even harder and took them places no one expected.
I am really excited about next year. A lot of people keep saying that we don't have the guards to compete. Guess what? We DO have the guards - to play Fennelly's style of offense. Fennelly has never run the "run-and-gun" kind of offense everyone here seems to think we should be running. It's always been get into the half court offense and run a play that either gets the ball into the paint for an easy layup or find the open girl behind the arc to pop the three. That's how it's always been. Lacey, Bolte, and Ezell excel at that style of offense because all three of them can drain the three. Where we got killed last night is we didn't have the interior presence that forced Rutgers to respect the inside game. If we had the inside game last night, there's no way Rutgers' guards are defending on the 3-point line because all we would have had to do was dump the ball inside for the layup. If Weiben and Ross were healthy, the inside-outside-pop the three game would have been working well last night, the same offense that has worked well for State for the last decade. IMO I have no problem with the guards - we need to keep the forwards and centers healthy next season. We do that and it'll be a memorable season.