I will admit, part of me wonders whether, once you rule out the obvious donks, it's really more a matter of how lucky you are that some awesome HS kid grew up in your geographic area. How would we think about Skip Prosser if Chris Paul hadn't been for Lewisville or Josh Howard from Winston? I mean, people bang on guys like Brad Brownell, but Brownell kicked fucking ass at UNC-W and Wright State. The dude can coach basketball. He hasn't lit the world on fire at Clemson, but how much of that is due to Brownell versus the fact that Clemson is Clemson and there hasn't been a Chris Paul who went to HS in Clemson? If you put Brad Brownell at Wake and Chris Paul had graduated from West Forsyth in 2012, how well would he be doing here? To me, it seems like that's such a huge part of it and it's basically just luck and circumstance.
Anyway, heavy question, totally out of place on this thread, but just something I think about from time to time when I hear people bitching about Brownell or Mark Turgeon or other coaches who had big time success at other stops, but aren't tearing it up at their current school.