Are we talking about the same Jim Boeheim, who had Derrick Coleman, Billy Thompson, Laron Ellis, and Stevie Thompson on the same team...and didn't win a chip? That Coach B? We are all nostalgic and yearn for the good ole days...this new era requires a different combination of factors to field successful teams...and what we think of as "great coaching", isn't as important anymore as is the ability to identify talent, have the ability to PAY Talented PlAYERS and retain them. With rosters changing every year, it is much harder to develop chemistry and develop future talent. Is Duke's coach a great coach? Who knows, it may look like that, but one thing is certain is that Duke keeps attracting high level talent and they only lose that talent to the NBA and not to other teams in the transfer portal. Unless we enhance our money stream, Syracuse like, many other programs, will continue to just be inconsistent and average compared to past standards, independent of who is coaching. That is a hard pill to swallow and accept...but that is what this current situation suggests...You can see it already in college football with the retooling of all the top teams...Miami..Indiana...Ole Miss- who has stolen our entire starting wide receiver group for next year- Why?- Deeper pockets!!
Come on, man, this is where that argument starts eating itself. … First, yeah, we’re talking about the same Jim Boeheim who coached big‑time talent and didn’t win a title every time he had pros. That’s kind of the point: nobody does. K has teams with multiple lottery picks and hangs one banner out of five chances. Self has rosters full of NBA guys and still gets bounced early. The standard can’t suddenly be “if you don’t win a chip with every stacked roster, you’re not a great coach,” because by that logic there are basically zero great coaches walking the earth. Boeheim took different types of teams – some loaded, some thin – and kept them nationally relevant for four decades. One ring with that many swings doesn’t prove he couldn’t coach; it proves how insanely hard it is to finish the job even when you’re good.
Second, saying “this new era is all about money and talent, not coaching” actually undercuts your own point. If identifying and retaining talent is now the most important coaching skill, that still lives under the head coach’s responsibility. Who is setting the program’s identity, choosing which kids fit, selling them on staying, and adapting schemes to a roster that turns over every spring? You don’t get to declare that “great coaching isn’t as important anymore” and then immediately define “great coaching” as roster management, portal work, and NIL navigation. That’s just moving the goalposts to protect whoever’s on the sideline right now.
Third, the Duke example is doing less work for your argument than you think. Duke’s coach might or might not be an elite X‑and‑O guy, but there’s no question he’s doing something right in the new rules: convincing five‑stars to come, convincing enough of them to stay, blending one‑and‑dones with returners, and keeping the machine from falling apart. You can’t hand‑wave that away as “just talent.” If it were that easy, every program that throws NIL money around would look like Duke. They don’t. Why? Because even in a pay‑for‑play world, you still need a grown‑up with a plan.
Fourth, the NIL/portal reality is real, no doubt. Syracuse doesn’t have the pockets of a Duke or an SEC football school. But that doesn’t mean coaching is suddenly irrelevant and all outcomes are pre‑ordained by Venmo. It means your coach has a narrower margin and has to be sharper: finding undervalued guys, building year‑over‑year identity, tightening up discipline so you steal games on the margins instead of giving them away. If your answer to every blown coverage, bad late‑game possession, and flat road performance is “well, we’re broke,” you’re letting the staff off the hook for the controllables. Poor schools can still be well‑coached; rich schools can still be sloppy and underachieve.
Finally, use your own example of football. Yeah, Miami and Ole Miss are buying rosters – and you know what’s happening to the coaches in that sport when they don’t win fast enough with those bought rosters? They get fired. Money doesn’t make coaching irrelevant; it makes it more brutal and more exposed. Syracuse hoops is not exempt. Lack of top‑end NIL might explain why you’re not a 1‑seed. It does not explain why a team with legitimate ACC‑level talent looks disorganized, inconsistent, and mentally loose in winnable games. That’s where you stop blaming only the wallet and start asking tougher questions about the guy with the whistle. I think you should point out some other issues besides coaching that need to be part of how we look at coaching but we still need to hold coaches accountable for parts of the game that are controllable. I try really hard to judge Red in those aspects , while , mitigating my criticism of him for some of the reasons you have stated. But it’s not a blank check to simply say that he still as a coach is underperforming. I think that reasonable minds might see it that way for good reason. I don’t think this board should not consider your points on any level but I don’t think that they’re having some mass hallucination to believe that Red just might not be a good coach.
