Was last night's game...

[Oakland]

Thank goodness the players didn't quit like us fans did (including me, though I did watch the entire game). They continued to play hard and the 20-4 comeback was fun. Hard to understand how they could start so badly in this game and in many other games this season (this is a rhetorical statement, please don't mention Red for the 900th time).

 

[hungrychuck]

This is way worse than any team JB fielded in his 40 something years as a head coach at our program. We were nationally known until he put us on the national level. Hell he is a game winner away from having 2 national championships.

We were in the Final Four two years before JB took over.

 

[SUFan44]

I posted this, I think, in the game thread maybe?

But as bad as this season's been (and it is the worst I've ever seen), there is a stretch here where if we don't grab some dubs, I would assume the players may just plan their trip to Cancun (do college kids still go there?).

Cal is NET 118. Duke will smash us. BC/Miami are 224/247, respectively. There is a shot that we can get three of four before UNC.

The nightmare is lose to Cal, get embarrassed by Duke by like 30 and then when we play BC/Miami, it's just games of zombie teams playing each other. If we lose three of those four before UNC, I mean, that's pretty dark times on top of where we already are.

I don't see a scenario where the nightmare doesn't happen? Feel pretty confident about that.

 

[kcsu]

No doubt -- he would have.

Because over time, he grew increasingly more petty and short tempered. And despite his clear love for SU, he hijacked the program and held it hostage for several years, which wasn't in the program's best interests. There is no doubt whatsoever that JB would have gone scorched earth.

And then it would have been over. Short term pain / ugliness, instead of long term pain / ugliness as the program slips into further irrelevancy.

And if we'd actually done due diligence and hired a qualified head coach, instead of someone who was completely unqualified and has demonstrated quickly that he's in over his head, then the program would have righted the ship, and the fans would have quickly gotten over any temper tantrum JB would have thrown, and gotten behind the new coach.

Because if there is anything that Syracusans back, it's a winner. Those negative feelings would have quickly been put in the rear view mirror IF the successor won games.

Instead, we're seeing a continuation of the program's decline, with no end in sight.

Unfortunately in today's world it's as much about Boosters and their NIL money as anything. JB going scorched earth would have burned up many Boosters. JW did the right move given all of the factors at play. After next year if Red doesn't turn it around hiring outside will have support vs opposition. Its unfortunate but it's reality.

 

[billsin01]

When JB was relieved of duty by ADJW, we were teetering on the precipice. The program was at what seemed like the nadir of bottoming out [oops] at that point, and making the right replacement hire was either going to help the program right the ship, or cause the program to fall of the cliff.

Setting aside whichever approach individuals supported / advocated for at the time, hiring an unproven coach and emphasizing ties to the program instead of legitimate evaluative criteria was a really bad, dumb approach.

Continuity hires make sense when things are going well, and the AD / fanbase wants to maintain a steady level of success. It makes zero sense to make a continuity hire when a program is struggling.

And here we are.

So I disagree slightly on two points, at least for me personally:

1) I never believed we were at the nadir last season. First, JB could coach. The talent and roster construction was sub-optimal and he had things that drove everyone crazy, but the guy was a basketball junky who knew the game. It can always get worse than that.

Secondly, since the start of conference realignment (whenever that was), I’ve always been concerned a small private school in upstate NY could become utterly and completely irrelevant when it’s all said and done. Hasn’t happened and hopefully won’t happen, but the current setup isn’t ideal for us.

2) Think your point on continuity hire is an extremely valid one. It is absolutely logical and absolutely the path they should have taken. It was never going to happen, however. University politics, boosters, the respect they have for long-time coaches like JB … it just wasn’t going to be a national search. It’s why college sports are littered with guys after The Guy.

For anyone interested in a national search, the route we appear to be taking is probably the fastest way to that point. Not rooting against Red, but if you weren’t convinced he was the man, it’s probably better that the team is really struggling as opposed to sort of hanging in there but not making the tourney.