Well Mike, to be honest, the program has been trending down when you consider last year we had the best player in the league, Meg McConnell, and finished in 9th place.  Factor in we are currently winless, it is clear the program is not competitive in the A10, therefore we are already being set back and at least 2 years, in my opinion.

As to your point about about a new coach setting us back, it is entirely likely that the team could have an equal or worse record than what we have now, but the expectation is that a new coaching staff would have the ability to coach up the existing players in the program.  For example, in the SBU game, with Duquesne up 6 in the 4th quarter, we had at least 3 travelling calls that I remember, which were costly when we were trying to protect the lead.

How that ties back into coaching up the current players is this - we are late in the season and the players are making the same mistakes and at critical times in the game that are costing us.  It is a clear indication that the players are not getting better, but are regressing.  This should be addressed during practice and it should have been resolved by now.  Burt is in his 14th season and there is no excuse for his team to continuously make the same mistakes over and over again, this late in the season. 

I will also point out what I stated last year as in indictment to how bad of a game coach Burt is, last year in the final game of the season, at Cleveland State, we had an 11-point lead at the half.  Cleveland State played zone in the second half and our offense was completely shut down.  It is incomprehensible that we could not solve the zone that late in the season.  That is coaching and is addressed in pre-season.  It was not like the team had never seen a zone defense before, but in the 2nd half vs. CSU, they were deer-in-the-headlights.

Getting back to a new coach, the expectation would be they would improve our players in the course of practices and get them ready for each game, making progress so that the team is peaking at the end of the season, when they should be playing much better than before the season.  That is the direct opposite of what is happening here. We have won one game in the last 13.

You brought up a mass exodus, yes, a new coach could come in and some players may feel that they are not a good fit for the program anymore, and some will leave.  But if you keep the status quo and make no change, some members of the the team will likely look to move on because next year has only one recruit coming in and the player from Africa that is not playing now, it sets up for another losing season.  Competitive players don't like losing.  As we saw last year, we had two players leave the program for better opportunities.  Both of those players would be valuable contributors to this years team, had they not left, especially Jerni Kiaku...we all know how valuable she was to the team last year.

We are in a culture of losing, we are not competitive in the league and I expect a few 20+ point losses in the coming weeks, especially at St. Joe's and against George Mason.  If you replace the coach and the players all stay, you at least give yourself a better chance at what could be a better team through player development.  As I said above, we are not giving our student athletes what the truly deserve, excellence in coaching.  Clearly, if they were getting better coaching, they wouldn't be making the same mistakes over and over again.

I close by stating the obvious, there are no guarantees in life.  A new coach could be hired and like what Pitt is finding out now, another trainwreck is in charge of the program.  This is why I am concerned about Harper's ability to hire a quality coach.  I just don't have a lot of confidence in that happening right now.  VCU fired their coach a week ago, and they are currently 6-12 in league play.  The circumstances are very similar, length in coaching tenure at the school and both are the winningest coaches in the program's history.  Their AD clearly decided enough was enough and time to move in a different direction.  Our AD?  Crickets...

Rayrich, I don't know if you read my reply or just ignored it, but I addressed that question: we are currently in a culture of losing and some players may decide to leave if they are not comfortable with the new staff and if they will not be a fit for the program moving forward. The portal works both ways...players will come and I point to our portal additions to the team after last season. Competitive players want to win and will look to move on regardless of coaching change or not.

There are no guarantees that players will stay, but I will also point to what SBU is doing right now. They have made dramatic improvement with a new coaching staff, going from bottom feeder to beating us twice this year.

Oh, we won the battle for last place today with the win at Fordham. Based on that today, we could possibly beat VCU at home, remember they have already fired their head coach, who was very similar to Burt, the winningest coach and around the same tenure at VCU. If I am correct, we will head into the A10 tournament with 19 losses for the year and will end with 20 losses.

Coaches in their 14th year, having a 20-loss season is inexcusable. We NEED to move in a new direction.

Last edited by DU90 (2/14/2026 5:29 pm)