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You said the most important point. Mid or low major basketball has changed drastically. That is why Acker will not do well. He probably would have been an ok hire 15 years ago. Acker is still stuck with the Aztec mentalility. Aztec basektball has decent NIL (we don't), much better facilities, and a recent history of winning (we don't). This has lead to much more continuity of the roster from year to year. They know they can afford to build in the Aztec Way or Culture or whatever you want to call it. LBSU doesn't have that luxury to build a system like the Aztecs. We need someone who is flexible (Acker's not), someone who can bring 8-10 new players every year and mold them into a team (Acker can't). It's pointless to tell Smitheran because he only hires Aztecs, but you need to hire coaches who are use to that type of coaching environment. Those are coaches at the D2, D3 and JUCO level. Iowa's coach McCallum was at D2 in 2022. Cal Poly's coach was at D2 and while his regular season wasn't great, they played really well in the BWT. You could argue UCSD had a coach with a D2 background (Olsen) since he took over when they were in D2. There are other examples of these type of success at the low-mid major level. Watch how UCR does this year. They just hired a D2 coach with prior D1 Assistant coaching experience. Even after being hired late, he pulled in 8-10 portal transfers. My bet is that he gets them to play as a team sooner than Acker will this year because this is all he knows.

I'm resigned to that fact that Acker will be here for the duration of his contract but I won't be happy about it. We're just going to see a repeat of what we saw in his first year. Play a system that is not suited for the talent. Lose 10 players to the portal. Bring in 10 new players for the following year and repeat all over again. I've been a supporter for 50 years so it's a little late for me to give up on LBSU basketball. I hope Acker undergoes some miraculous personality change and adjusts to this new reality.

If you think my early take on Acker might be off. Just remember, I was on this board soon after Conoley was announced as the new president 10 or so years ago and said she was significantly underqualified to be the president of LBSU. How did that early take turn out?