Is Gary Waters the right coach for Rutgers basketball? I've linked an article where he is pretty much defending himself and the progress of the program. Personally, I think he has done a good job so far. When he got here recruiting was a mess, no one wanted to come here because of the screw ups of past coaches. The program literally had no ties with any high schools in the region.

Because of the schools bad rep GW had to take chances on kids that were questionable and most of them didn't workout...he gets beat up for taking chances on these guys but alot of people forget about the reputation the program had when he took over. They act like he turned down a top 25 player to bring in a risky player, when the reality is if he didn't take a chance on a certain kid he probably wouldn't have brought in anybody. Despite the mess he inherited he seems to have mended alot of fences and some top kids from the NJ and NY areas have us high on their lists. Congrats to him for that.

People also forget that most predicted that we would finish 13th in the conference and not even make the BE tournament, well we made the tournament and are waiting for an invite from the NIT. Rather than giving the guy credit for giving us a decent season most are crying about not making the NCAA's. He predicts that we are 2 years away from being the team that he and the fans expect and I agree with him. Here is the article:

<a href='http://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketball/ledger/index.ssf?/base/sports-0/107907695893180.xml' target='_blank'>http://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketball/ledger...07695893180.xml</a>

I think Gary has done a pretty good job.He has some nice players in Webb,Douby,and pre injury Wooten.Also the RAC is back to its dominate form.The only problem is winning on the road.And the season is going pretty good i mean we have had some set backs but all in all it was fun times.Hopefully with more time we can get that NCAA bid we all want .

GW is taking ALOT of heat right now, fortunately it seems he has solid support from the AD. Whats funny is most Knights fans wrote this season off, many were saying early in the year there is no way this team can win 12 games. GW, lead them to 16 wins and a post season tournament. The team did MUCH better than anyone expected...instead of being excited about the progress, people are complaining about not making the NCAA's.

The ironic thing is, if this was a 12 win season like expected people probably wouldn't be on his back. Having RU on the bubble for so long actually hurt GW, people began to believe this team was better than it is, instead of giving GW credit for getting 16 wins from a team with alot of shortcomings.

I don't know if you heard the Gary Waters show tonight but Bob Mulcahey was on, he pretty much said the same thing about how the team did much better this year than expected and that people began to expect more when we started winning. The bottom line is this team overachieved this year, fortunately BM understands that and is going to give GW the time he needs to build this program.

It really dosen't matter at this point, hes signed for an extention and Rutgers just won't buy out another contract. Next year will be his 4th at RU, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. You know what they say though....... "nice guys finish last or at least don't make the big dance".

I think GW will get us to the dance, in fact I think he will do some great things during his tenure. BM gave him a 7 year contract because he knew it would take time to get this program on the right track. Hopefully we have a nice run in the NIT to give the naysayers something to chew on until next season.