Any chance you are my cousin Clint?
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Heās my former teammate and friend. And I disagree but you can vote for who you want!
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1-1 this week might push me into thinking thereās a >50% odds we keep Ron.
I honestly think he and Odom are essentially co-favorites to be our HC next year at this point.
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What if we go 2-0 this week and utterly crater in January and February? We kind of did that last year!
I get trying to forecast the odds, so thatās sort of separate. I just donāt see how anyone has a preference to make a decision any time before February. There arenāt drawbacks to waiting, we arenāt missing out on anyone, and Ron isnāt leaving mid-season to go anywhere.
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It is silly to even think about Ron being kept on as it relates to results until at least 1/3 way into league play.
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How much of that natty heft outlives TBās tenure is an open question to me. Iām cribbing a HGN point, but I think a fair amount of what we think of as program prestige* is tied directly to the head coach. A new guy has to bring some of prestige with him or be able to amass it himself, in my opinion.
*āWhat is program prestige exactlyā is an interesting question to ponder as well.
Why is that?
Yeah, Virginia as it pertains to itself has next to no prestige. Tony Bennett had the prestige.
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Not a metric, but I think program prestige is when you can screw up a coaching hire and not really skip a beat:
UNC - Matt Doherty
UConn - Kevin Ollie
Kentucky - Billy Gillespie
Duke - Jon Scheyer 
You still need to ultimately get the hire right, but itās easier to do at those places. Compare: MD hasnāt recovered from Turgeon yet . Georgetown hasnāt recovered from Latter JT3 or Ewing yet.
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I agree with that, but I think we have a good 10-20 year window where we can use that natty as strong proof of concept that a coach CAN WIN at UVA.
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Uhhhhh the 1980s beg to differ. Even the early 90s.
There was a point where Val Ackerman and Roger Mason Jr were the negotiating forces of each side (Players/Owners) in the NBA
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Agree 100 percent. Yes, we won a natty and it was awesome. Weāre also a program that has been to the Sweet 16 three times in the last 30 years. Our coach, who was regarded by many as one of the very best in the country and a future Hall of Famer, accomplished that feat three times in 14 chances. We had a great run but we donāt have any program prestige, where we can expect to just plug in a new guy and continue to win at Bennettās level. Thereās only a handful of programs that can expect those type of automatic results (Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas) and anyone who doubts that need look no further than whatās happened at Villanova for a reality check.
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Iām ok with Ron. I also can see the argument that Ron was not a HC candidate for a major program until Bennett shoehorned him in. Iāve liked what Iāve seen so far but there is so much more to being a HC than winning with an in-place roster held hostage by timing. I will say I lean towards him being a very good talent evaluator though.
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I disagree. Plenty of schools have had great, transcendent coachesā¦ and no national championship to show for it. Itās a differentiator.
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I think people are inflating āprestigeā to only mean āblue bloodā lol. Weāre not a factory like UNC or Kentucky but acting like we have no pull or sustainability as a program is a wild take to me. Thereās more than enough resources here set up for a coach to win big.
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I hate this idea that Virginia canāt and will never do any better than Tony Bennett.
Was he great? Yes, obviously.
Was he perfect? Absolutely not. In fact, he kind of sucked in March ā outside of the one magical run. And there are those college basketball fans, myself included, who would argue that only March matters. (Gotta make the Tournament, thatās all the regular season is good for. Itās what you do in the Tournament that matters, and Bennett lost 4-1, 7-2, 10-1, 16-1, 13-4, and 13-4 upsets. Thatās six of his ten NCAA Tournament appearances ending in seeded upsets. He had a 13-9 Tournament record, 7-9 if you take away 2019. Mediocre for a āgreatā coach.)
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Yeah but who knows that and talks about that? No one. Thatās what prestige is. When people are talking about your program even when it is going bad. Nobody is talking about our program right now.
I really think we have an inflated idea of what national championship cache gives us 5 years later in a practically different sport.
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Itās probably somewhere in the middle between the inflated idea ofthe cache and the concept that it doesnāt matter at all and that Virginia has zero hoops prestige without Tony Bennett.
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Also, what weāre talking about is natty cache, not for the general public, but for potential coaching candidates. As in, our ability to attract elite coaching talent. I think this is an important distinction, and you can bet your ass that natty matters to those coaching candidates.
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Agree