I like gambling too, but if you can get close to a sure thing right now then you take it.
Of course. I don't think Howland is a sure thing based on his lack of success his last four years at UCLA before getting fired, and hypothesis that his success can mostly be attributed to getting awesome recruits that can be attributed to his assistant.
My thought process is this:
-Howland made three final fours in a row. Why?
-Because he had unbelievable players. 8 guys who played in the NBA over those three years plus good role players. How did he get those players?
-He recruited really well and put together really good rosters. How did he do that?
-He had Kerry Keating as his top recruiting assistant who was known as a genius recruiter who handled that entire aspect of the program. Can he hire the next Keating if he were at Wake?
-It's possible, but I doubt it. Especially it's been noted about what a difficult time Howland had replacing Keating.
In short, I don't put too much stock into Howland's three Final Four years at UCLA because I think the circumstances leading up to those years would be impossible to duplicate if he were to be HC at Wake.
I do think his success at Northern Arizona and Pittsburgh is really impressive, so if we do hire him, I'd be banking on him going back to that style to have success -- but it was so long ago and in a different era of college basketball.
My fear is that he will come in and alienate the existing players with his tough style and lack of personality, leading to several transfers. We'd be bad next year and even worse the following year. Howland isn't a miracle worker coach -- his first team at UCLA was putrid (151st in KP), despite solid talent that included four guys who played in the NBA and mostly top 100 recruits. Recruiting would be about what it is with Bzz because of his style of play and inability to connect with players -- the occasional four star, lots of 3 stars, and we are basically playing post-Duncan era Odom ball. Not terrible, but far from what I think we want.
