I agree with the first couple of points but I really have to push back on the third. There are lots and lots of successful examples of legends handing off the reigns to a replacement or a guy replacing a legend that have gone remarkably smoothly or been fairly successful. Here are some examples. Yes, there are varying degrees of success here and varying degrees of programs, but many have similar characteristics to Syracuse.
1.) Izzo replaced Heathcoat and actually built on and had more sustained success than his mentor.
2.) despite a failure to reach a Final Four, Matt Painter has done wonders at Purdue sustaining his mentor Gene Keady’s success in an incredibly competitive conference.
3.) Roy Williams has won more titles than his mentor Dean Smith at UNC. Yes there was a small 2 or 3-year blip of difficulty with Matt Doherty, but most people knew Roy would come home if Doherty flamed out.
4.) Bill Self did fairly well replacing Roy at Kansas. I’d say 13 straight conference titles is pretty good.
5.) Chris Holtman righted the ship at Ohio State after Thad Matta’s health issues.
6.) Louisville has gone from legend Denny Crum to legend Rick Pitino to Chris Mack. The jury is out on Mack but he had huge success at Xavier so he should do well.
7.) speaking of Xavier, they’ve had years of sustained success under a myriad of coaches, from Matta to Skip Prosser to Sean Miller to Mack to Travis Steele.
8.) Brian Dutcher has continued the success that his mentor Steve Fisher started at San Diego State.
9.) Michigan went from legend John Beilein, the all time wins leader at the school, to Juwan Howard, who in his first year had a top 5 team that won the Big 10 and made it to the Elite Eight.
10.) Arizona had a brief period of turmoil following Lute Olsen’s health issues and subsequent retirement. But Sean Miller, despite not making a Final Four, had Arizona near the top of the conference every season.
11.) Even Kentucky and UCLA have done really well. No one was gonna equal Wooden’s success at UCLA, but good coaches from Larry Brown to Ben Howland to Mick Cronin (even mediocre ones like Harrick and Alford) have kept UCLA relevant. They’ve almost always been at the upper echelon of their conference, even if they’re not winning 12 national titles. Same with Kentucky.
12.) after Rollie left, Steve Lappas kept Villanova in the upper echelon of the Big East (even if his tourney results weren’t stellar) until Jay Wright came along and took it to the next level.
Sure, there are a few examples of programs like Indiana that have struggled. But even Indiana had some success under Crean.
Great programs with great facilities, great fan bases, big revenues and great recruiting territory make for great coaches. Syracuse is one of those type of programs.
