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Message: [QUOTE="brasssbonanzaa, post: 2632249, member: 794"] What part of what I said is wrong? I'll spell it out not in a sarcastic run-on sentence. too long;dr - Hurley checks nearly all the boxes of what UConn is looking for and has built two programs and sustained success over his 8-year HC career. He is not a threat to leave for another college HC job. Oats is not from the local area, took over an already built program, and coached one great game. He's been a HC for 3 years and is a threat to leave for another college HC job. To delay interviewing/hiring Hurley to look at Oats is insane. Oats is a Midwest guy from Wisconsin who lived and coached in Michigan for over a decade. None of his current staff have any meaningful ties to the area. He's been a head coach for three years. He took over a Buffalo program that Bobby Hurley had already helped turn into a fairly successful program, and has done a good job continuing its success over the last three years. Buffalo had gone 23-10 and 19-10 in the two years prior to him taking over. He has never coached in the Tri-State area or New England and does not have ties to the area that UConn has recruited heavily from for decades. If he were to come to UConn and have success, the minute a job in one of the major B1G schools opened, he'd be a legitimate candidate - particularly Michigan, MSU, and Wisconsin. Hurley is a Northeast guy who has coached and played in the Tri-State area and New England for his entire career - the primary fertile area UConn has recruited from for decades. One of his assistants he can bring along is a former UConn longtime coach with major recruiting ties in this area. He's been a head coach for eight years. He has taken over two programs in horrible situations and turned them around into contenders. Wagner had five wins the year before he got there, two years later they won 25. URI was 7-24 the year before he arrived, three years later (in a far more difficult conference than the NEC) they had 23 wins and have sustained that success beyond that. If he were to come to UConn and have success, there are no other major college jobs in his home area that could open up where he'd be considered likely to leave. The only fathomable one could be Villanova but that's an enormous stretch to call that "home" and the Philly college basketball area is enormously different than Tri-State/New England one. You also pointed out earlier that the tournament sheds light on coaches who previously didn't get attention. That's true - but what it also can do is shed light on coaches and make them look better than they actually are. Greg McDermott is an example - three tournaments at UNI, goes to Iowa State and fails as a P5 head coach. The aforementioned Keno Davis - brings Drake to the NCAA tournament in his first HC year and gets the job at PC, fails. Andy Enfield goes on the run at FGCU in his second year as a HC, goes to USC and has not translated that into meaningful success - one NCAA tournament win, two losing seasons, three missed tournaments. The point isn't that Oats is a bad coach and won't be a good coach somewhere else - there's a good chance he will. But he has not proven that he's a program builder, he has no ties to the area, his staff has no ties to the area, and he has only been a head coach for three years. There's is very incomplete data on him to show that he's not just a flash in the pan coach who took over a program that was already in a good position and brought in a few good players who all got hot on one night. Dan Hurley checks all of the above boxes and has had meaningful results in the tournament on multiple occasions and sustained success everywhere he's been and done so with limited resources. If we struck out on Hurley, I'd absolutely like to take a look at Oats. But Hurley is the most sensible choice of all of the available options, and he checks the most boxes of what we're looking for. To delay the process of hiring that candidate so we can look at one guy who coached one great game who would at best be a roll of the dice is completely asinine. [/QUOTE]

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