I'm not sure why you throw Dawn into this discussion. I'm not minimizing that she's a good coach but she isn't even close to either Muffet or Geno. I think that Dawn would have likely done NO BETTER than Holly with Tennessee's lineup while I'm totally confident Geno and Muffett would have far exceeded Holly's performance. Geno and Muffett are ELITE coaches and neither Holly nor Dawn are, as far as I'm concerned.
Yes, I am in agreement with you that Geno and Muffet are a cut above the rest .... there is no question of that..... and as for Dawn, well I think she is doing OK ,... and she deserves credit for building SC to what it has become.....but we need a larger sample size from the program's performance as it stands now..... i.e. as a nouveau power in WCBB, how do you fare vs. the Baylors, the Tennessees, the Notre Dames, etc.... give it a year or two more and i will feel much more confident about assessing Dawn's coaching prowess.....
And since there is so much chatter about Holly, I will again throw my 2 cents in..... I just think she is substandard as a coach, leader, motivator and tactician. I was pretty certain in my opinion, but wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt..... My mind was resolute after witnessing the career of Meighan Simmons..... who ran the team on the floor from the guard spot.... always was going solo, seldom getting teammates involved.... short on assists, etc.... I thought, why didn't Holly sit her down immediately, and put her back in only when she was willing to be part of the team, not to mention lead in that thought process..... My Tennessee friends told me, politely i might add, that I had to understand that Meighan wouldn't be like that if others on the team were willing to shoot..... they just wanted to leave that chore to Meighan.... and I thought..... well isn't that the coach's responsibility to get the rest of the team in line, so that you are functioning as a team and all rowing in the same direction.?
Holly was given a program filled with talent. And she has done a good job of continuing Tennessee's recruiting success. But I do not see her doing anything with the talent she has. Understandably she has had injury issues but not the whole 4 years she has been head coach..... the year filling in for Pat and 3 years with the title...... she has admitted that the team doesn't always listen to her..... it was deep into this season when she started to put any focus on the offensive part of coaching at all, by her own admission..... she sounds like Coach P at Duke at the pressers with the recurring quote "we're going to have to learn from this"..... I try and think of one game in her time that her team beat another team that was better than her..... I do not think it has ever happened......though of course she has lost to teams she shouldn't have lost to.... Chattanooga etc....
And I would add this..... Lady Vol Nation has continually put forth the fact that transition is not easy with the circumstances of Pat's disease. Agreed!!! But as Pat's right hand person for 30 years, and having been head of the team for the last four years, I would have expected much more..... my extreme skepticism and expectation level is apparently matched by many Tennessee fans who fully expect to lose - as a #2 seed - to #11 seed Gonzaga this weekend..... (just basing this on viewing the comments from the message boards) Many at Tennessee who were Holly skeptics turned around when the team co-won the regular season SEC title..... they congratulate her for that, and even congratulate her for getting a berth in the NCAAs and leading the LVs to the Sweet 16 the past 3 years or however long it has been.....
I am still a Holly skeptic. Though not ready to write her off, I see how she is coddled to a certain degree (I go crazy when I read the Bill Guthridge comparisons, and how difficult it is to follow a legend).... The bar is set very low for Tennessee and Holly specifically, and my worry would be, if I was a Tennessee fan, is that these small victories of Holly's (co-winner of SEC, NCAA berths, 29-5 winning record, etc) buy her goodwill and extra time at the helm, which is good if you are a SC fan...... Tennessee needs a kick ass coach who is good at the x's and o's.... and demands respect from the players..... I would like to think that if Geno left tomorrow and Chris D took over with essentially the same resume as Holly's (30 yrs as top assistant etc), that in a short matter of time she would have the total respect and buy-in of the team, be teaching both offense and defense with help of her staff, and leading and motivating - not bowing in deference to what your players want to do.
Circling back to the start, there is no question, Muffet and Geno are certainly the best of the best.
....maybe im missing something here....realistically speaking.
