Iād stop at just the first hire, and Iād look mostly at the most similar situations ā that is, Coach with gas in the tank left or retired early (sometimes because he had to):
School/successor:
Kansas/Self - HR
Cincy/Cronin (AK was interim only) - Solid double. Cronin took a few years, but took the program back to every year tourney status.
UConn/Ollie - Strikeout, but the first strike sailed an inch to the left of the fould pole.
Florida/White - Solid Double. Elite 8 within 2 years. In second round a lot. Left pretty quickly after he declined, and with a modicum of drama.
Memphis/Pastner - Single. Kept going to tourneys, but program hit a slow and steady decline.
Nova/Neptune - looking like a strikeout, barring a last second turnaround.
Louisville/Mack - thrown out at second base after hitting a gapper. Really weird situation. Not sure how to judge a situation where the coach was/is good, but the admin got antsy and made him fire good assistants, and one of those assistants tried to extort, and the HC forgot to read the āwhat to do when your assistant and good friend tries to extort you because heās worried youāre going to screw him on $$ā part of the compliance manual.
UConn and Lville are both too hard to put on a continuum so letās throw them out. I think the pass/fail mark is pretty much Pastner. A little better than Pastner, and thatās a pass. A little worse than that, and itās a fail.
Tbh, itās not even weird enough. Itās probably like āhit a stand-up double, trotted into second base. Later picked off of second base in a rundown when he started to stare off into space.ā Something like that.
Probably right. Though maybe he was the tie-breaking runner put on second with 1 out. Not sure he even hit safely to reach second. Just got there and forgot what he was doing.
Interesting thoughts today. It is such a different environment than when we hired CTB. Itās been noted that so many of the old guard coaches are retired or on the way out, and itās not surprising with the landscape being so different. I think we are a high flight job with the resources available. Top flight is probably SEC money and little academic red tape to work around. I see no reason that a good hire cannot be highly successful at UVa. I do not believe that we are destined to become irrelevant.
As far as success, making it to the NCAA tournament is the number 1 (I think the 7/10 years makes sense) with an above .500 record in the tournament as the next measure. I think that is reasonable.
In the new world of college athletics quick turn arounds are easier to accomplish. A good number of the names being thrown around are capable of making it happen. Go Hoos!
Right on the money with this one @haney! Unreasonable to measure the new hire to the second era, but totally reasonable to want/expect more than era three. I really think with the talent available we underperformed in those years. I think there are lots of reasons related to the shift in landscape with student athletes mobility, but some of it was Coach digging into principles that brought earlier success. There was not enough tinkering with the formula as the game was quickly evolving.
It wasnāt just that we were losing. It was how we were losing.
2012 - lost as a 10 to Florida 71-45
2014 - lost a close tough S16 game to MSU as a 1 seed. That was fine
2015 - lost a close 2nd round game as a 2 to an under seeded MSU team. That was fine
2016 - blew a giant 2nd half lead as a 1 to 10 seed Syracuse in the E8
2017 - lost as a 5 to Florida 65-39
2018 - UMBC
2019 - did not lose
2021 - Ohio as a 4
2023 - Furman as a 4
2024 - Colorado State 67-42 where there was a period of a real time hour where we didnāt score
Thatās a history of upset losses to double digit seeds and embarrassing blowouts, even pre-2018.
It reminds me of when I used to say āCanāt we just bow out normallyāā¦like not in a way that all your friends and casual acquaintances say āouch, that was roughā
2012 - 0 chance of a win with the injuries
2014 & 15 - did anyone expect them to win or maybe better said get mad when they lost? Also injuriesā¦
2016 - yeah disappointing but also itās the Elite 8
2017 - Again, that team was in trouble trouble when Zay went out but they gutted out a first round win.
I thought Tonyās performances in all of these were acceptable but obviously was devasted they didnāt beat Syracuse.
14-15 were normal losses that happen in the tournament.
71-45 and 65-39 are embarrassing blowout scores.
We led a 10 seed Syracuse that we beat earlier in the season by 15 with 9:33 left in the game with a trip to the FF on the line and managed to blow the lead by the 5:51 mark. 3 and a half minutes. That was a very embarrassing loss.
If weāre going down this awful rabbit hole, I maintain that the Syracuse loss hurt infinitely more than the UMBC loss.
We were never winning the natty in 2018, both because Dre got hurt and we werenāt beating Nova even if we made it and he was healthy. But the 2016 team had such a good chance to win it all and it was lost in 10 horrible minutes of basketball to a full court press and Malachi Richardson going bonkers.
(never mind - Radford. Not sure how I screwed that up. Actually, I am sure, but itās a long / uninteresting story. That I wonāt tell. Youāre welcome.)
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