Replacing a Legend and Recovering

[Huskybass]

Let's examine some legendary coaches and what it took for program to get back (or near) to it's former coach's level.

All being done off top of my head without Google. Facts, dates and names will be wrong. Feel free to correct.

UCLA- Wizard of Westwood. Bartow got them to a FF. Also went to a FF with Rod Foster. Harrick got them the '95 championship and Howland got back to back (or 3 in a row FF's) in 2000's. Verdict? No where near the sustained success. Took almost 20 years after Wooden to win another and nothing in another 20 years. Program hasn't achieved any where near peak success or continual success.

Indiana- Closest to UConn. Knight leaves and Davis makes an FF soon thereafter. Went downhill quickly after the FF and really hasn't had consistent national presence in over a decade. A couple of teams cracked top 10 but no more FF's. Not even sure if there's been any E8 since the FF. Several coaching changes and styles since Davis but no where near the glory.

Georgetown- Nothing of significance since JT left. A few good teams and a FF but nothing close to dominance. 20 years since JT left, several coaches later and nothing has stuck.

Villanova- Wright has exceeded any thing from Rollie. More consistently good and nationally significant. Still 20+ years from Rollie to recovery.

UNC- Dean leaves and I can't remember the order. Guthridge? Somewhere Doherty came in as a disaster. Took poaching Good Ole Roy and an academic fraud to get back to continual success.

Kentucky- Poster child for success. Pre integration, post integration, doesn't matter. Rupp, Hall, Pitino, Tubby, Slime ball. Multiple coaches, multiple eras, multiple championships. Tough to find a 10 year stretch where they were out of picture.

Mich St.- Took some time from Heathecoat to Izzo. Heathecoat wasn't consistently great. Izzo elevated program like Wright did at Nova.

Kansas- I'm punting. Always nationally relevant but no dynasties. 3 total championships?

Duke/SU- Incomplete until replacements take over programs.

Just a sampling but UNC and Kentucky have been able to transition and both have done so with dubious methods (cheating).

Izzo and Wright elevated their programs.

Indiana and UConn are closest matches.

In other words, there's not a whole lot out there of keeping program success on cruise control. Has almost always required 10+ years and 2-3 coaching changes to get back to level of success.

Thank you. Great to see a summary like this.

 

[cohenzone]

Yeah, I get it. But no coach has won more than others. Kansas is more of a program where each coach wins a lot and every 25-30 years they win a championship. I was looking more at programs that have had a "Face of the Program" coach. At least Kentucky has had multiple coaches win multiple championships.

Replacing a legend, a highly successful legend is thankless. The guy who probably got the most undeserved criticism was Bartow. His chances of coming anywhere near Wooden we’re pretty much zero. But his teams weren’t a disaster.

The strong personality coaches like Knight and Calhoun are another tough act to follow, but a decent coach won’t oversee the real deterioration of a program even if they can’t sustain what the legend started.

All in all, some interesting history.

 

[Stainmaster]

Where have we gotten the idea that realizing that Ollie is not cut out for the job somehow equates to having unreasonable expectations?

The replacement of "Ollie is not cut out for the job" with "Calhoun was so much better at ____ than Ollie" is a pretty good indicator of unreasonable expectations.

People will deny it outright because they know it makes them look foolish, but they want Calhoun 2.0.

 

[uconNYC]

If we are a consistent Sweet 16 team I am happy. At least it let's us dream of the possibility of making the Final 4 and winning NCs.

 

[JeepCSC]

The replacement of "Ollie is not cut out for the job" with "Calhoun was so much better at ____ than Ollie" is a pretty good indicator of unreasonable expectations.

People will deny it outright because they know it makes them look foolish, but they want Calhoun 2.0.

Of course they want Calhoun 2.0 on some level. He got UConn to the mountaintop three times over a 15-year period, who wouldn’t want the good times to continue? But regardless of desires and hopes, there is still a product put out on the court that can be measured objectively. It’s on that front that the program’s shortcomings are glaringly obvious.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Great post. Only one minor correction: Bartow was the coach when New Britain's Rod Foster led UCLA to the 1980 Final Four. They didn't both get to the FF in separate seasons. Bartow later went on to some success with UAB. Louisville won its first title that season with "Dr. Dunk", Darrell Griffith.

Larry Brown was UCLA's coach with Foster, Kiki, e.g. al.

On the OP, I don't believe we are a valid comparison to any of those schools.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

UNC is the most consistent tournament team. 4 HOF coaches, 5 coaches who have taken teams to FF, FF in every full decade. But all that was for naught during the Doh era. He was given one chance to fix his disaster 8-20 season with his guys but when he lost that team, that was all she wrote. Roy is obviously a hell of a backup plan, and it wasn’t guaranteed he’d come back after already turning down the job in 2000. But Doh had to go regardless.

While you are at it you may want to look up Dean Smith's results over his first few years as head coach at UNC.

 

[djct1999]

Please factor in - change of conference ,
Recruiting restrictions and the ban along with replacing our legend. Say what you want but ours was a unique situation of
WTF.

The change of conference is the single largest outlier. The AAC has killed any hope for us to regain our seat at the basketball table. We can always be more competitive than this, but will never again match Calhoun's success. Not. Even. Close.

 

[JeepCSC]

UNC was on probation when Coach Smith was hired (it is in fact why he was hired). Year 6 was the start of back-to-back-to-back ACC regular-season champion/tournament champion/FF squads. There was pain in-between (year 3 was the infamous effigy after a Wake loss), but the trend was clear by Year 4 after 3 years of cautious optimism initially.

 

[JeepCSC]

Digging a little deeper, UNC’s first HOF coach was hired because he was in Chapel Hill doing ROTC during WW2 (Carnevale). The replacement coach lasted 6 years but was fired for not keeping up with NC State (and also back-to-back losing seasons). The second HOFer was hired next (McGuire). The third HOFer (Smith) became an assistant when McGuire asked Carnevale for help searching. Smith became head coach two years later. Then his assistant Guthridge got the job, then a former player in Doherty, then back to a former assistant in Roy. And of course Roy got his KU job because KU first went to former Phog player Coach Smith and he said no, but take a look at my assistant.

Long story short (too late!), coaching hires are a lot of who you know and a bit of luck. But you also need to know when to cut your losses and move on.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Excuses

No, "factors."
There's nothing invalid about explaining and examining, except when they get conflated with "excusing."

 

[FfldCntyFan]

Cautious optimism included an effigy?

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Not weighing in with analysis, but it looks like this thread omits Lute Olsen and Arizona's transition to Sean Miller, and Louisville's transition from Denny Crum to Rick Pitino. 3 out of 4 are in the HoF, and Miller would seem to be the reigning Best to Never Make it to the Final Four.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

To make a few things clear:

Do I believe KO is doing even a marginally acceptable Bob?

No.

If it were entirely up to me and money was not a large part of the equation would I dismiss him once the season ends?

Shy of some very concrete evidence that he is turning things around to where we can reasonably expect conference championships and tournament runs (similar to JC's years 4 - 10 here) in the very near future I would move on.

Do I believe the school will move on from KO after this season ends?

No. No inside info but my belief is that the buyout is too steep. Some off-court incident would change things.

Do I believe most on this board are beingv reasonable with blame (towards KO)?

With a couple rare exception, no.

Do I believe most on this board (since things went south) have been giving KO sufficient credit for his first two years here?

Absolutely not. It is possible for someone to give honest credit when earned and honest blame when it is warranted. Most here seem to believe that there is no way to criticize KO for the past few years without criticizing the entire body of work. This requires excuses being made for how he was able to succeed when he did.

The facts are that for years one and two KO did exceptionally well. It would be difficult to argue that someone could have done better when everything is taken into consideration.

Since then he has been a different coach and different person. I don't know if he can return to years one and two KO (It does not seem likely) and szhty of that happening he should be dismissed. That said, we don't need to discount what he did early on in order to critique what he has done since.

 

[Chuck]

KO is not struggling because he is replacing a legend. Expectations were not unreasonable, and KO was welcomed with open arms by the fan base. The fan base has been tremendously patient with him because he is a son of the University / program.

Factoring in everything going against UConn (mediocre conference, loss of a legend coach, injuries) and what UConn has in its favor (great facilities, more money than most in the conference, great brand recognitions/tradition (that is fading)), there is no way that KO is meeting reasonable expectations with his teams. The epidemic of transfers is a strike against KO, not an excuse. He has turned UConn into a middle 1/3rd program in what many consider a strong mid-major conference. If that is where we should reasonably expect UConn to be in the future, then we may as well do it with a less expensive staff and a more exciting style of play.

For those that say UConn can never reach Calhoun's success in the AAC, you may be right, but Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, Gonzaga, and some of the schools that are now in the new Big East did very well in crappy conferences with multiple coaches.

 

[JeepCSC]

Cautious optimism included an effigy?

In the midst of sanctionsabd after losing a couple All-Americans, UNC went 23-19 in the ACC and he had brought in a soon-to-be basketball HOFer in Billy Cunningham. Yes, cautiously optimistic would seem to be about right. Students are rarely as patient as alumni or time. But there was enough positive growth in the program to warrant optimism.

 

[Kolumbo]

Years Coach Seasons Overall Record Conference Record
2011–12 to present Mark Turgeon 7 138–67 (.673) ACC/B1G: 61–45 (.575)
1989–90 to 2010–11 Gary Williams 22 461–252 (.647) ACC: 194–157 (.553)
1986–87 to 1988–89 Bob Wade 3 36–50 (.419) ACC: 7–35 (.167)
1969–70 to 1985–86 Lefty Driesell 17 348–159 (.686) ACC: 122–100 (.550)

 

[Kolumbo]

Lou Carnesecca 1965–70, 1973–92 526–200 .725 139–80 .635
Frank Mulzoff 1970–73 56–27 .675
Brian Mahoney 1992–96 56–58 .491 29–43 .403
Fran Fraschilla 1996–98 35–24 .593 21–15 .583
Mike Jarvis 1998–2003 66–60 .524 57–36 .613
Kevin Clark 2003–04 2–17 .105 1–15 .064
Norm Roberts 2004–10 81–101 .445 32–70 .313
Steve Lavin 2010–2015 81–53 .604 40–30 .571
Mike Dunlap 2011–2012 11–17 .392 6–12 .400
Chris Mullin 2015–present 22–43 .338 8–28 .222

 

[socal613ws]

Not trying to stir any pot, just want to know who you guys would love to see takeover this program?
I think Dan Hurley makes the most sense, he has the east coast ties and what he's done at Rhode Island is pretty amazing. The man has an edge to him that has lacked since Calhoun left.

 

[weyuo]

... to Chris Daley. She deserves it. And time for the powers that be to plead(with a sweet boost in pay) for Geno to take over the men's program. Two, maybe three years and the men would be back in the Final Four. It would cement Geno Auriemma as the greatest basketball coach in the history of the game. Please, somebody make this happen because what's happening now is ruining the tradition of UConn Men's basketball.

 

[nychuskyfan]

Honest question. Why the visceral reaction every time this is suggested? Is it because it’s well known that he would never do it or because people are skeptical he’d be a good mens’ coach?

 

[krinklecut]

Don't really know what else to say. Maybe getting rid of Ollie midseason wouldn't be the worst decision.

 

[husky99]

Heard there is talk

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Honest question. Why the visceral reaction every time this is suggested? Is it because it’s well known that he would never do it or because people are skeptical he’d be a good mens’ coach?

He would never do it and what men's high school recruit is going to commit to a women's basketball coach who may only be there a year or two?