Jess Wynn, to do the impossible

[Wayne23]

13-13, 6-8 USC is in. Only won by 2 there on a really bad night for us- 23 TOs, 21 fouls. They’ve lost 4 straight, only one vs. a ranked team. This is a game we should win easily, which would be good.

2/16: 64-53. They owned us in the 1st, taking a lead of 13, and up 11 at the half. I raised all kinds of hell and we came out and played great ball in the 2nd.

+9, +5, 40-34%.

12, 3, 4, 1, 2 for Dahl. The other 4 starters had 10 each, 10 RBs for Rich, 7 for Bass. Brown played 16 min. due to fouls, which didn’t help. 8, 7, 5, 4 for Asby from the bench which was huge for us.

#11, RPI #7.

AZ and Stanford both lost. If we win our last we can finish no lower than 3rd.
Starting C Will Walk strained a calf. Out for about two weeks. Bosl will start but we have no bigs to bring in from the bench. We’ll be very small for long periods of time.

At 7-19, 4-11 Wash. ST in the regular season finale. Beat them by 26 at our place. They’ve lost 5 of 6 but beat Stanford somehow. They’re not that good inside and that’s key, given how small we are right now. Big game because none of the other leaders figure to lose.

2/20: I can only shake my head, 51-58.

+3, +5, 33-44%, fouls 15-21. We lost because we couldn’t hit shots. Giving up 58 should ensure a victory. It didn’t, and the game wasn’t as close as the final score.

It looks like we’re in 3rd but we should be in 4th given the various tie breakers- Stanford and Arizona are with us at 11-5 in conf., and they both beat us. We’ll see. We lost 5 of our last 9. Two of those we should definitely have won.

2/26: #12, RPI #9.

Walk is 100%.

[Wayne23]

3/9: Play in day. Wash. ST upset Cal. All the other favs won. We’ll play Ore. ST and yep, we’re the #3 seed- a break!

Ore. ST is 17-12, 7-9, finished 6th. Played them at our place and only won by 7. They’ve won 4 of 5 and 6 of 8. On paper this is a breeze but the way we’ve been playing…

3/10: 67-55. We jumped out to an early lead and never trailed.

+4, even (14 TOs), 45-37%, fouls 14-6. -9 free throws.

Guards won this one, 23, 5, 3 for Brown, 17, 4, 7, 1, 1 for Dahl.

24-6, 11-5, #11 Stanford in the semifinal. We lost by 4 there. They’ve lost 2 of 3. Their SG beat us last time. We need to contain him and the PG.

3/11: We played incredible D, 56-36.

+8, +6, 40-32%.

10, 8 for Walk, 8, 10, 2 for Rich, 11, 3, 3 for Dahl, 10, 2, 2, 2, 2 for Brown. Held their starting guards to 13, 5, 6 with 10 TOs. We came up big at the right time!

Walk tweaked his knee but he’ll play in the final.

It’s #4, 28-1, 15-1 UCLA. Beat them by 9 at our placed early then lost by 18 late. They are a very tough team.

3/12: We hung with them for 38 minutes but in the end they were too strong, 53-64.

+6, -8 (20 TOs), 36-41%. Just like last time the 2, 3, 5 did the damage for them.

18, 7, 1 for Rich, 10, 5, 2 for Bosl. A good run to reach the final.

[Wayne23]

#3 in the East, We’ll play 21-9, 10-4 Bucknell first. They won their conf. and tourney, and their last 6. I don’t think they have the talent to stay with us.

We’re in a very, very tough bracket. #1 and #2 in the country, Ga. Tech and UConn.

3/16: 66-57. We never trailed after the first minute but we never broke away from them either. They were scrappy.

+15, -4 (17 TOs), 42-41%.

17, 1, 1, 2, 1 for Brown, 14, 5, 2, 2 for Rich, 8, 9, 4, 1 for Walk,, 6, 10, 2 for Bass. We’ll need to be better to go anywhere in the tourney, especially better with the ball.

27-5, 15-1, #18 St. Joseph’s is next. Won their conf. and tourney and their last 13, 19 of 20. But they played a weak sched. and I don’t think they match our talent level.

3/18: 65-47. Much better! +2, +6 (14 TOs, still too many but better), 48-32%.

21, 2, 5, 1, 2 for Brown, 8, 10, 2, 4, 2 for Rich, 10 each for Dahl and Asby. Sweet 16!

[Wayne23]

#2 seed, #1 in the country but #6 RPI UConn is next. 34-1, 15-1. They haven’t lost since 1/5. They have 4 outstanding players and then nothing. Vulnerable at PG and we’ll double him all the way. Still, this is the best team we’ve seen all season.

3/23: 41-51. Stayed with them most of the way but we couldn’t generate any O and we couldn’t stop their SG who had 26.

+20, -4, 27-33%. Rebounding kept us in but sloppy ball handling finished us.
9, 14, 2, 2 for Bass, 8, 11 for Walk, 7, 7, 1 for Rich. The guards didn’t get it done.

26-9, 11-5 in a rebuilding year. Not bad, and we’ll be better next year.

UConn was upset in the round of 8.

#2 Ga. Tech vs. #3 North Carolina, and #4 UCLA vs. #5 Florida in the Final Four. I’ll be there.

Jay Sand commits so we got our guys. Good recruiting year.

4/1: #2 Ga. Tech vs. #4 UCLA for the title.

4/2: Mom called. Dad’s in the hospital, intensive care with a stroke, evidently a pretty bad one. I fly home.

4/3: UCLA wins the title by 8 but I don’t even see the game. I’m at dad’s bedside. It looks like this is it. He’s not conscious and is not expected to regain consciousness.

4/4: Awards: Pat Rich makes 2nd team all conference. That’s it.

4/5: The greatest coach in college basketball history died tonight. No one ever has or ever will mean more to me than Will Wynn, the best dad I could ever have had. It was time but that doesn’t make it any easier.

4/9: No interesting offers but I wouldn’t have moved anyway, not given the family situation.

4/16: No staff vacancies.

4/23: I ask for a facilities upgrade. I don’t get it.

My #’s are: Off. 49, Def. 73, Recruit 81, Scout 9, Player Dev. 61, Reputation 59. My record is 308-87, .780. Not the kind of numbers dad put up but not bad at all.

4/30: Another year, my twelfth, ends.

[PointGuard]

Hey Coach, sorry to hear about "THE Coach".

[Wayne23]

Thanks. It's tough when heroes die.

[Wayne23]

5/1: We buy National Gold again.

6/5: Going for one.

6/12: Got him! #2 in his Senior year of H. S., 5 star Mike Mack, SF. Now to get him eligible.

6/26: 6 to fill and we need 6 bigs. Looking at 12- 2 SF, 4 PF, 6 C.

7/11: Kid camps.

7/25: The usual report. Still rebuilding, I think we’re a year away. But I look forward to a good season. Still FAR from over losing dad. Mom and I seem to spend more time together though, so that’s good. She’s still on me about settling down and starting a family but…

8/7: Pat Rich is #48 on the Norton List. FWIW, Mike Mack, who is sitting out a year as a transfer is #15.

8/21: We offer to 6.

9/11: 4 visits. Wish I had 6.

9/18: Got one, lost one. Got #29 SF Josh Fox.

We have a sched. We’re in the JAG Holiday Invitational. All ranked teams on the road, 2 at home. A very challenging schedule.

9/25: Got another one, lost another one. Got #16 Tony Garr, an excellent prospect at C.

10/2: Got 2, #47 PF Dar Sing, and #48 C Ty Catt. We’ve got 4 of the 6 we need. I like my team. We’re short of big guys after the starters at 3, 4, 5 but we’ll manage.

We’re picked 3rd in conf., behind UCLA, then Arizona.

I need to say that doing all of that without having dad to talk to is tough. It's tough every single day. So often I reach for the phone and then I'm stopped by remembering that I can't call him.

10/9: Got #44 PF Tony Davis. One to go!

10/23: Dave Prat, #37 SF says yes. Finished… most likely.

11/2: 1st exhibition is vs. UC San Diego. 42-42 at the half.

73-70. +4, +3, 44-44%, fouls 9-16. 3 point D almost did us in, they hit 14!

11/7: 2nd exhibition is vs. UC San Diego. 41-17 at the half.

69-65. Awful in the 2nd half. +3, +9, 46-36%. Fouls 13-16.

No changes to the starting lineup. Asby needs to play lots of minutes. We will red shirt Wilk. We have only 3 bigs on the entire squad. All three are very good but this will hurt us and an injury to a big will be disastrous.

[Wayne23]

We start the season hosting Michigan. Not much to go on.

11/16:65-48. Good start to the season.

+4, +2, 48-27%. Not happy with 17 TOs. D won this one.

15, 9, 2, 1, 3 for Bosl.

At #15, 1-0 Louisville. This will be a definite challenge. They are very strong up front so we’ll need to avoid foul trouble with our bigs. Guards are weak. We’ll pressure them.

11/19: 43-51. Their SF and C killed us, 35 and 20.

+5, +3, 25-33%. Fouls 22-16. Poor shooting and fouls did us in.

At 0-1 Syracuse. They have an excellent C and an SF that can score but not much else.

11/23: 61-43. Great 2nd half broke it open.

+14, +4 (but 19 TOs), 41-34%, fouls 10-15.


17, 16, 1, 0, 4 for Bosl, 12, 12, 3, 2 for Bass. We need to take care of the ball.

2-1 start vs. tough teams. This is a rebuilding year but I’ll take this start.

[Wayne23]

2-1 Illinois is in. Very strong up front and a 2 that gets nearly 30 per game. Still, all in all we’re as good as they are.

11/26: 48-51.

+6, -4 (22 TOs), 34-32%. We have got to start taking care of the ball. It’s terrible.

We played very well up front but our back court was invisible, as was our bench.

#15 Pitt is 4-2 but they haven’t beaten any good teams. Their SG lights it up. They’re sloppy. This won’t be easy but we need a win.

11/30: 53-59. It could be a long season.

+11, even (18 TOs), 40-42%. Our guards let us down again, the front played well.

5-0 North Carolina State is in. They’ve played 5 nobodies. Their starting C is hurt and probably won’t play much. We truly need a win.

12/3: 75-52. Best we’ve looked all year. We took an early lead and never looked back.

-6, +6 (but 17 TOs), 54-34%, As awful as we are with the ball our opponents have been worse, We average 17.2 TOs and the other guys get 19.0. It makes for games that are not pretty to watch.

17, 9, 2, 3, 4 for Bosl, 19, 1, 3, 2 for Rayn in his 1st decent game, 14, 4, 6, 1, 2 for Brown, 13, 5, 2 for Rich. We finally got some production from the guards. We’ll need more of that.

[CoachC]

Dad died? It would have killed you you to send me a text message? --Gary