T-Dog wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2019 11:49 pm
Looking back at five years of Fox, going to almost all the home games and being close to this, I have things I want to write.
For a while, I grinned and beared Fox saying "you know, this one time, at Davidson..." We all did. And it was because we wanted this to work. But he never stopped. I understand that is his Camelot, but a lot of those good Davidson memories for him were bad Davidson memories for us App fans.
When he started, Fox said he'll meet the fans after every game at Tapp. First two years, he did with exceptions for early-morning flights, recruiting, other functions, etc. Year four? Not many times. This past season? Not once. Allison and Poole did and that was appreciated.
I've harped on this to the point of annoyance, but the yelling during games didn't seem productive. And it never stopped. I don't even know what some of the assistants' voices sound like. Compare that to Angel's staff and it's night and day. All of Angel's assistants have a role in game management. And when I brought up the yelling to those in the Foxhole, I was told "you should see him in practice."
To me, it didn't seem like the players enjoyed playing the game. Being the drill sergeant can work if the team rallies together ala Herb Brooks, but it seemed like the players had their love of the game beaten out of them.
The 101-100 lost to GaSo? Yes that four-point play was a flop, but App was up 8 with two minutes to go? Next weekend, up the same amount with two minutes to go versus ULM. Both games at home, both losses.
His player personnel decisions were questionable. He wavered on keeping Goesling on scholarship, so he went D2, tore it up and is now a grad transfer on Top 15 Houston. Remember the one year he had 23 players on the roster to start the season? He spent a lot of money recruiting O'Boyle out of an Arizona JuCo and he barely played. Same with Breki from Iceland, although he's was a freshman.
I remember when Fox got here, he worked with Obacha to just be a rebounder and he rarely shot the ball. And it worked perfectly fine. With Issac, he's the best rebounder in the conference, but he would be fed in the post in a back-to-the-basket situation and put up a terrible shot. Why not do with him what he did with Obacha. There's other examples of players not becoming what they could have been, but that would be very long. And Jim hyped these players up big time before they arrived. I put a lot of that on coaching, especially the bad defense.
This season, there was a lot of "I don't know" and "We need to fix that" answers in postgame press conferences. He seemed like a man out of answers.
There's going to be people who say "y'all don't know what it was really like there, Fox never had a chance!" and stuff like that. Hell, Jeff Capel said that about his little brother despite mountains of evidence saying Jason deserved to be let go. But he had his chance. Eight seniors, most returning production in the conference and went from 5th to 10th, plus only two D1 wins out of conference.
The "Fox brought App out of an academic hole" thing is misnomer. Fox deserves credit for bringing in players who can get good grades and graduate. But with the APR ban, the scores are a year behind to ensure accuracy. The scores turned around in Capel's third year, but the first two Capel years were so bad that the APR ban was inevitable. Fox suffered because of that, but he took the job knowing the ban would happen, and also that it was a 99 percent chance the ban would only be one year due to Capel's last two years triggering the APR improvement clause.
