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Message: [QUOTE="Forza Azzurri, post: 5726779, member: 1452"] great post, OP. Orangezoo and I had this discussion in another thread. I wanted Gerry. He wanted someone else. I agreed with everything he said and all the reasons he gave why we should not take Gerry. I wanted Gerry for one simple reason - potential higher upside long term for the university (and the fanbase, meaning me) Success in college athletics, IMHO, boils down to continuity. Get a really good coach and keep him for the long haul. We had that with JB for 40+ years. IF Gerry turns out to be a really good coach, he gives us the best chance at duplicating that for the next 25+ years. Like going from Favre to Rodgers. To be clear, there is little to no indication that he is going to be a really good coach at the highest levels of college basketball. 2 seasons at Siena cannot possibly tell anyone that. So, from that perspective, it is a high risk hire. So, what is the downside? Since we are not going to be able to poach a top-level P4 coach, we are left with either assistants or coaches from lower levels as possibly hires. They all come with a substantial amount of risk, IMHO. Not as much risk as hiring Gerry but risk nonetheless. It is not like any of these guys are slam dunks to be great coaches (and if you try to tell me otherwise, I am going to tell you that you are wrong and that you have no idea what you are talking about - hiring coaches is a crapshoot unless you are hiring Pitino or Saban.) Worst case downside is that we pass one on one of these guys and one of these guys becomes the next Pitino. That would suck but, chances are that guy would only be here long enough for a cup of coffee and then he'd be off to somewhere with much deeper pockets. And we'd be looking for a new coach in a couple of years anyway. I was stunned to hear that Louisville's win on Thursday was their first win in the tourney since Pitino exited stage left. That was 2017. Louisville (hoops blue blood) churned through four coaches in 7 years before landing Payne. There but for the grace of God...That could easily be us. Easily. Churning through multiple hires trying to find "the" guy. And maybe GMAC will fail and that will be us. And if GMAC fails? Yeah, we suck for the next few years and then we try again with whoever the hot assistant or lower-level coach is at that point in time. But maybe, just maybe, the "kid" turns out to be a good coach and we are, hopefully, set for the next quarter century. I'll take that risk. [/QUOTE]

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