I'm not going to condemn the OP for saying what he said, but my initial reaction is: be careful what you wish for.
Boeheim IS the program. We have no idea whether others will be able to continue our sustained level of success, or whether we'll drop off once he retires. Things are never certain when you are replacing a coaching icon. We've seen example after example of successors to HOF coaches struggling. In some cases, it can take 10 or more years or even longer for some of these teams to get an adequate replacement to the icon. I hope that's not what we go through.
Not a knock on Hop, either.
Part of me is ready for change and eager to see the program get some new blood and embrace some new approaches. But part of me fears that our program will face the same as what Indiana, Georgetown, and others have had to deal with after their legendary coaches went away.
Dean Smith "IS the program." Until he wasn't.
Kobe Bryant is the franchise. Until he hurt the franchise for a few years while everyone needed to revere his productive years.
The JB loyalists seem to imagine a coach has a career trajectory like a never-ending upward linear progression. Reality is, it's more like a bell curve, and we are well on the downside. No matter how fit he seems when he's screaming at our players on the sidelines, he's old and less-involved than he was 10 or 15 years ago.
Four years in the ACC and we have zero tournament wins. We are .500 against ACC teams in three straight years. All not so coincidentally occurring around the sanctions and his lame duck status. What exactly is "loyalty?" Are we supposed to be loyal to a man or to the program? The program is more important. Regardless of what he's given us over the hundred years he's been with us, there is a point at which he will be doing us long-term damage. Some people don't seem to care if that happens or don't think that IS happening, and they justify that with 12 minutes of Malachi Richardson being desperate not to write any more term papers.
I completely understand the fear that comes with change and transition. We have enjoyed remarkable consistency of having above average teams. But we are in decline that sees us with ONLY having average teams. JB will not be here to see us back into 'excellence.' We are only going to get back to being a power some number of years after he's gone. We don't know that Mike is going to be the savior but we do know it won't be JB unless He decides to stay another five to ten years, and all the recruits actually believe that. They'd be silly to believe that and I don't even believe enough kids revere JB as much as we would like to believe. It doesn't help to constantly see him red in the face and raving at a player every time one of his non-pets has a basket scored from somewhere in his general vicinity. The zone is effective some years, but you've got to question a scheme in which the coach still feels the need to yank a guy he has determined is important enough to be a starter, every time points are scored... in the last game of the season. Maybe you could expect that to be the Means of Instruction early in the year, but if all the same 'mistakes' are being made in game 30, the scheme or the treatment is flawed. And yes, we can still win a game DESPITE a flawed scheme.
We are not a premier destination at this point. JB is not going to be there for recruits. We have been noted for being a walk it up, slow tempo team for the last five years. We have the stink of sanctions. We look incompetent all too often. We get out dunked and out highlighted all too often. We are on the bubble all too often. We are not ranked at all for entire seasons all too often. A lot of us have been with the program for a long time. Me, since 85. But recruits? Young people today have an extremely limited frame of reference and perspective, as far as history is concerned. They don't know or remember that we went to a final four a few years ago. Heck, I barely remember that... We cannot believe that some kid from some place other than central New York thinks the same things about Syracuse Andy it's hallowed history that we think. We are talking about high school kids who know about the past few years and that's it. And a lot of kids haven't even been playing organized ball for more than a few years, so they don't even incidentally have a sense of things.
Wanting JB to stay is asking for us to just remain at 500 in conference, finishing 10th in the league, but praying for upsets in the NCAAs and hoping a couple of teams are unfamiliar with the zone so we can reach a final four, but still have no actual hopes of winning a championship. That's a silly scheme for a program of national prominence, and assumes we can get the 'benefit of the doubt' every other year just to get into the big dance. It's absolutely sickening to 'true fans' to be in the bubble every year, and sometimes get spurned while Virginia tech gets a 9 seed. VIRGINIA TECH. Somehow, they get in, while we have a team with 3-4 eventual NBA players and we get an '18 seed.' Some people were saying just this year that this was one of jb's best coaching jobs. Not so much.
It's painful. The transition. But the program is like a tree. Sometimes you have to cut off a branch to save it. You suffer a little in the short term, but the health of the tree has to be the paramount consideration.
