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Xavier Silas

This is crazy. Wish I had followed this more the last couple of years since I heard he had landed at UNI. I recall my brother playing against him in high school and thinking X looked pretty skilled, but back then he didn't even look like a unanimous first team pick in a region that only produces 1-2 starters for major D-I programs a year. During his year at prep school when I read CU was recruiting him I was amazed. He's come a long way. It was always my understanding from secondhand sources that he wasn't a guy to buy into the team concept, but very impressed with how he has managed through all of his moves.
 
had a friend who had X in a class. said he seemed like a good kid, a bit on the conceited side but a good kid. i know the board tendency is to love up bz but i don't see us finishing the cellar with X and Kowal. seems weird to me that as bad as we've been in the post for the last 4 years, Kowal can't contribute for a Bz team with Rich Roby and Macus Hall.
 
Mick Ronson said:
had a friend who had X in a class. said he seemed like a good kid, a bit on the conceited side but a good kid. i know the board tendency is to love up bz but i don't see us finishing the cellar with X and Kowal. seems weird to me that as bad as we've been in the post for the last 4 years, Kowal can't contribute for a Bz team with Rich Roby and Macus Hall.
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I agree. I was really surprised at some Bz's dismissals, but I figured there had to be some reasons. For Silas, I remember that he and Roby seemed to have some differences when he was a freshman. To me, that seemed pretty arrogant - to be a decent-yet-not-great freshman arguing with the team's proven star player. I think character meant a lot to Bz, as well as your ability to play in his system. Silas probably had the tools to play in his system, but from the outside, I'd have to speculate it was all character issues. Kowal...I thought he was too slow to really play for Bz.
 
maybe Kowal was too slow but he had decent numbers at UNI....not the Big XII but 10 and 7 or thereabouts. in year 1 of Bz we probably lose 3-4 conference games for the simple fact we can't keep the opponent off the O glass in the last 2-3 minutes. Bay, has been done to death but there was something there Bz didn't like. Silas, too. But Kowal played a nice game against Nebraska's Maric in Boulder as a FR. the other big kid, Van Burck?, he plays on Cornell team that made the Sweet 16.
 
Honestly Kowal would have been about as good as Dufault. Didn't understand that move.
 
ScotchBuff said:
Honestly Kowal would have been about as good as Dufault. Didn't understand that move.
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Did he have anything of a shot outside the paint? Dufault seems to have that additional tool.

One thing of note is that obviously this feel-good story is built on sources expected to be praiseworthy, like James Silas. Would be very interesting to get beyond the PR and find out what Bzdelik's line of thinking was regarding Silas.
 
I don't know what was going on behind the scenes but I told my friend a game or two before he left mid season that Silas was not going to make it through the season. Defintely some combination of egos and bad chemistry.

My memory on Kowal was that he was more of center (larger and less mobile). Don't remember a particularly consistent shot.

The schools is known as NIU vs. UNI for the little that it is worth.
 
BuffDog said:
The schools is known as NIU vs. UNI for the little that it is worth.
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D'oh. The UNI Panthers of course being successful in the public eye as of late.

Silas is clearly the bulk of that team's production. Wonder if Patton "resigns" after Silas leaves this year. Remember an article, maybe linked to here, about his poor relationships with local high school coaches because of a perceived lack of effort in recruiting locally. I can see Patton finishing out his career as a winning coach at a mid-major in Tennessee where he has history and has recruited well.
 
My understanding of the WHOLE situation is that Silas had attitudinal problems and a really arrogant/undisciplined work ethic, something that BZ clearly has issues with as do most coaches. Patton was willing to tolerate it because of sheer talent alone. I also get the feeling that Patton didn't mind a little intensity/combativeness in the clubhouse. I think he felt/feels that's part of "developing into a man", so to speak.

Patton kind of described himself as coming from the school of hard knocks. He always has had an "uphill fight" and "every person for himself" mentality. I think that since that's part of his development, he expects that from his players as well. That explains why possible issues concerining Roby and Silas, for example, never bothered Patton. He was going to move forward regardless.

This could be why there were some good teams (on paper) under Patton, but many of those teams failed to produce to their level. The '02/'03 Buffs were/are arguably the most talented team CU has ever had. That team should have easily won 22+ games, look back at their schedule and how many games were blown. There simply wasn't good enough team chemistry/coaching in the clubhouse and it shows. Prior to the final 2 years, Patton always had competitive-good looking players/teams, but most of them never accomplished what they should have.
 
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