And there's no point beating a dead horse. I am trying to be as optimistic as I can. Now I'm not calling anyone a horse, I'm simply referring to the situation.

Losing Mitch sucks, but wasn't unexpected with how many guys they signed this offseason. Somebody was leaving, it was just a matter of time until we found out who.

With all this turnover, a house cleaning is evident. We'll see next season whether it worked out or not. Our coaching staff knows that they need to start translating great recruiting to on the court results.

However, talk of firing Keller after year 3 is just too early. One, we're not paying out his contract, we're a small school. Two, we're 12 months removed from a toe to toe knock down fight with Tech in the NCAAs. Keller & co put together an excellent run to end the 2018 season. They know that they've got to do it again this season, it's a contract year if I'm not mistaken.

I have from the beginning of Keller's tenure been frustrated with our slow starts. (Slow starts in our games and slow starts for the season). We hardly ever seem to play well for the whole game. We all probably make a nice donation to our basketball program. We deserve better. We should have also won the regular season conference championship in both of Keller's first two seasons in my opinion. We lost games that we should have won easily.

CertifiedAxeman98 said:

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You just signed 10 guys up to come play for this coaching staff. Let that sink in.

Ivey will give Keller another year. He must or he will risk making a bigger mess when recruits start asking for a release from their LOI. You can't make a change at this point you have to ride the horse you have for 19/20.

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. Agree that this coming season is big. The ten new guys are very good recruits. The freshmen should be giving good minutes by conference play. When evaluating coaches whether by loses or wins one has to look for yearly patterns. I don't see a yearly pattern yet. Time will tell. This years potential looks really good. Jacks should finish in top 4 or 5 in conference. Anything below that would be disappointing. The year after should be better than that. We will see. As of now GO JACKS!!!! And win Katy this season!!!

In my opinion the top four or five isn't good enough unless we end up winning the tournament and going to the NCAA tourney. I'm tired of hearing excuses. Next season is do or die as far as I'm concerned. Keller has plenty of time to mold this team into a championship team if he is a good coach.

Keller needs to get ahold of this locker room from the start or it could be his last as a Lumberjack coach.. I have alot of respect for coach but some of his choices I really question.. Coach Keller is very respected in the basketball coaching community and he didnt get that way from doing some of the things like he has done this year.. I hope like hell he turns it around, he deserves the chance to try..

Whether Keller is deserving or not is a matter of opinion. Perhaps he's not as well respected as you think. I have also heard a lot of criticism of him from basketball analysts. He was once well respected as a recruiter. A lot of people have lost that respect for him. He will be our coach next season whether he deserves it or not because we cannot afford to fire him yet. Do any of you remember Derrick Allister?

Friendly reminder:

"Addition by subtraction" isn't always the worst.

It's pretty clear that the last recruiting/transfer class just wasn't the type of players we expected. Both on court and off.

Coaches fault? Yes Players fault? Also, yes.

Here is what we have to hope for: That this years class has far less of "those" guys and far more "all in" guys.

Then we have to hope Keller and staff can develop and elevate all the new guys into (at least) a competitive group

Nope other than Chris Mullin getting the axe and he thinking he wanted to play for Mullin... who knows with that cat..

{insert my doom and gloom comment}

#AxeEm

Would a staff member please explain why my question about Cameron Mack was deleted please? Was I wrong for asking if Keller's practices are open to the public? I recently retired and moved close enough where I could actually attend practice on occasion. Should I not?

Was last season Keller's fault? I'm not convinced, yet. There were too many factors out of his control. For sure there are things I wish he would've done differently (freshman playing time being one of them), but that's probably why I'm not a DI coach.

Is Keller responsible for last season? Absolutely. Whether he could control the issues or not is irrelevant. That's just part of being in a position of leadership. You have to take credit for the good and bad.

Is a completely new team next season a result of players being unhappy? I don't think so. In reality, there seems to be only two scholarship players that chose to leave, TJ and Jock. I understand why TJ left. I think he would have whether last season's team was any good or not. Jock chose what was best for him, and chose well in my opinion. It seems as though everyone else left because of injuries or because Keller didn't want them back (for whatever reason). I think Mitch wanted to stay, otherwise he would have entered the transfer portal much sooner. Sammy left because of his health. If John leaves, I believe it's because of his health. Karl wanted to come back. I'm not sure about Aaron, but I figure he would come back if the opportunity was offered to him. I have no doubt that Kevon will come back, and I think he and the coaching staff have already talked about that.

Regardless of the reasons, Keller needs to find a way to win next year. He chose the team he has, so he has to figure out how to make it work. I think it is unrealistic to expect an NCAA appearance, but anything less than fourth in conference and a conference tournament win is below my expectations and we should look elsewhere. There is no doubt that it will be difficult. We will only have one true starter (Kevon) coming back. The rest will have to learn how to play with each other and at a DI level. That's not usually something that happens in one season.

I contend that there have been way too many things out of his control since Keller has been here and that there is just too much there - there for it to be mere coincidence. But If he proves me wrong, I will be the first to admit it and to praise him. How does anyone actually know whether Mitch wanted to stay or not?

What do you mean again? What did I do wrong?

Silence is silence until hindsight comes into play.

I am disappointed to see Mitch leave. Was he really forced out as some are implying? I don't know and will not speculate on something like that without knowing more facts. However, there is something I'm pretty confident about because it's been true since the inception of the basketball team. If a player puts 100% effort into improving his craft, he automatically gains the respect of his teammates and coaches. I doubt any player as highly touted as Mitch would be asked to leave unless he was detrimental to the team. He may have decided on his own to leave. I do not know. I will certainly miss his potential, but he is currently a flawed basketball player. If he develops a reliable 10-12 foot jump shot and gains 30-40 lbs, then he has the potential to dominate. This past season, I witnessed bad hands which resulted in too many turnovers in the post, poor foul shooting, no jump shot, and too many times being pushed around by taller and heavier post players. On the positive, he can jump out of the gym and had some nice blocks.

It's enough to listen to Bearkats crow about football. Your dreaming if you think Keller is bringing us back. Lost.

When Keller became the head coach, he inherited a team with much less talent than the prior year. Gone were Walkup, Demetrius Floyd, and Clide Geffrard. CJ Williams left with a medical issue, and Ty Charles dealt with one injury after another. Who in their right mind would think a coach could come in and win in the first season with considerably less talent on the roster? However, Keller recruited a couple of JUCO transfers and some feisty defensive players and had us in the NCAA tournament in his second year. It can happen again.

Aerosmith "Dream until your dreams come true"

They say I'm a dreamer....btw, if you havent seen The Dirt yet on Netflix, you're missing out. It is the Motley Crue biopic...

Ya. The Dirt is a blast.

Keller inherited more talent than any of the other teams in the conference had.He's had plenty of talent From my point of view, his team seemed to be disorganized and lacked motivation at the start of the games. There are times that they looked lost on the court. I brought friends to the games to try to get them interested in our team. Those friends were basketball fans. All of them were disappointed in what they saw. I rested my hopes on him improving as a coach. He has one more chance as far as I'm concerned. Prove me wrong Coach Keller!

"If you build it they will come".

I have to agree with Keller on that decision. I was very disappointed with the way Mitch performed. Yeah, he could dazzle us with a dunk or a blocked shot but he seemed incapable of making the routine play. I didn't see all of that potential that some of you are referring to and I did not see any evidence that he wanted to return for another season. I seriously doubt that he did.

That's fine.

Let's refrain from too much specific speculation on why Mitch is leaving. General basketball commentary will be allowed, but we're going to be mindful that this is still a public forum. Let's remember that everything we post can be read by all (including the athletes were speculating about).

There's going to be more leniency given behind the paywall as always. But we're always going to be protective of the student athletes. Let's refrain from speaking for them. Hope this is understandable.

The intention of silence
to expose or deceive

Its power much greater,
than most would believe

Sometimes to say nothing,
speaks loudest of all

The quiet most deadly
when falsehood befalls

We all want the best for our former student athletes. I would never say anything with the intention of hurting one of them. Nor would I say anything to deliberately hurt or offend a coach or a former coach even if his name is Derrick Jones. "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds"- William Shakespeare