#72 on Kenpom is one of Tulsa's better Kenpom rankings in the past 10 years. That doesn't suck.
Everyone would have like to see more of a track record. Everyone would prefer more of a sure thing. But the thing is, it's not that hard to win at Wake. It seems like those panicking have convinced themselves that it's going to take a Herculean effort to pull us out of the basement. It won't. If he can do better than average at Tulsa, he'll probably do at least average at Wake. Which for us would mean NCAA's more often than not after the roster turns over a bit. There's no legitimate reason to be extremly excited about Manning, but there's also no reason to lose hope over him.
Comparing Manning to Bzz is pretty dumb IMO, Bzz had a terrible fucking record before he was hired, it was an obviously bad hire. Bzz didn't deserve Bzz-wait. Manning has virtually no HC experience and I don't approve of the hire, but if he is hired he deserves some patience.
mdmh has a point, but the issue is that there is just nothing to suggest that Manning was an acceptable coaching candidate.
Contrary to the [name redacted] hiring, you're supposed to have credentials before you get hired to an ACC job. Like it or not and outside of the Colorado years (which were spun positively, iirc), Manning's look a lot like [name redacted]'s at Air Force. There's no way around that:
-Great credentials in an area that may or may not translate (NBA coaching expertise & one of the greatest college basketball players)
-success at a mid-major but without much of a sample size to qualify said success (Air Force & Tulsa)
-lots of mental gymnastics and speculation about recruiting (i.e. "he might have recruited Andre Roberson!" & "he might have recruited Xavier Henry!")
-the durable: "at worst he'll be average!"
-and finally "he'll be able to coach up our x-position!" (yep, that was one of [name redacted]'s strengths supposedly, too)
No reason to get excited about the basketball hire = no hope.
He'll do at least average? WTF happened to this fanbase.
Whatever y'alls psychiatrists are giving you - I want some.