Heat-O-Meter: Attention, Coach Shulman! You are getting too close to the sun!

I've stated it before, but it's pretty simple- I am not a firm believer that changing coaches automatically makes things all better. That being said, even I am beginning to be a little disturbed the things that I am seeing.

The Mocs have been consistently hammered by the better teams on their schedule under John Shulman's watch. Take away the first year, when the Mocs beat Tennessee and hung close with Wake Forest in the NCAA Tournament, and there are very few even close games for Shulman to be proud of- particularly away from home.

There has been much debate about the talent on the roster. I'm going to say that I firmly believe that there IS talent on the roster. The recruiting has been good, I believe. Keegan Bell, Josh Odem, Omar Wattad, even guys like Phillip Jurick who never made it to school are all guys that could play on any mid-major in the country. This is a good roster.

But it is a good roster that rarely plays up to their talent level. And that is frustrating.

There is little offensive work. They shoot a lot of threes, which is OK, except for that too often, they are not moving to get the open look- they just move down the court and throw up the first shot that they can shoot over someone's hand. If they were moving and setting screens and working for the open shot and then shooting those threes, then it would be different. And that has happened. I remember watching the Austin Peay game, where there was movement to try to get a shot. Against Tennessee, and in many other games this year, that was not there.

Throw on top of that the defense is absolutely atrocious at times. How do you let Jackson State shoot over 56 percent from the floor? Unforgivable. And it has not been forgiven.

Shulman says that the record does not matter at this time of year- but it does. The Mocs poor start two years ago lead to their 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They need to get up to a 14 seed to have a realistic shot of winning a couple of games in the tournament. So you can't screw around at this time of year.

These are consistent problems for the Mocs under Shulman. We are in Year Seven. I'm beginning to think that things won't change.

HEAT-O-METER: I'm a very positive person and a very optimistic person. I'm beginnning to be agitated by some things surrounding Shulman. Go to MocFans. You'll see for yourself how frustrated everyone else is right now. It's reaching a fever pitch. Due to the contract (and the low amount of money that Shulman is being paid to begin with), the hot seat is a little less hot than it would be otherwise. But right now it is at a solid 9 on a scale of 1-10. Start getting blown out in SoCon games, and things will get even worse. Shulman could easily be gone by season's end if things don't turn around drastically. I'm less willing to get rid of him than most, but this score is based on the general feeling and how I feel the athletic department probably feels.

GO MOCS!