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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2652683, member: 488"] That's fair. And I completely agree with your assessment of KO's last four years here. The last two, especially, have been an unmitigated disaster, and I certainly don't fault the school for deciding to move in a different direction. As a fan, I would have preferred retaining him, but I understand my priorities aren't the same as most. The responsible thing to do on the part of somebody running a business was to move on. KO's descent has not been your run-of-the-mill fall from grace. They finished the season ranked 178th on KenPom. That's astounding and as far as I know has no real precedent. He completely lost control of the program, and we needed somebody with his ducks in a row - that's Hurley. Great hire, even if I wonder whether his work of late has been somewhat overstated. With regards to Hurley and winning the big game, I'm not trying to go all Nate Silver on you. There are an abundance of variables - from team building, to coaching style, to temperament - that make postseason success more conducive to some coaches than others. My theory all along, after all, has been that UConn's March success could be attributed in part to the central tenets of the program and replicated in a way that certain numbers may be slow to react to. If Hurley struggles in March, that's not necessarily entirely a product of variance. But I also think it's safe to say that most of the time it's just luck. You try to recruit good players, you develop them, and then they either reveal themselves as guys who transcend coaching or they don't. Sometimes, becoming a great coach is just getting lucky with a group of players and then riding that momentum as far as it takes you. Jay Wright is living proof of that (which isn't to say he didn't also figure stuff out on his own - there's a fine line between staying with something and being stubborn). The point with the resumes I was posting makes sense in my head but I can see how it might not to anybody else. To make it work you kind of have to completely isolate the results of a particular season as indelible without assuming any relationship between one season and the next. I don't rule out the possibility that KO's first two years were unique or anomalous, but I saw too many translatable skills to dismiss the idea that he simply needed to experience growing pains. If he stays in basketball (and maybe it would be better for him to take a couple years off and see the game from a different angle in TV or something) for long enough, I think he'll get back to the top. Maybe not as high as he once was, but high enough to be relevant. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach