Eric Williams would eat this team alive. But whatever.
I don't think a comparison to really any of our past teams is entirely relevant. What we did with different players and different coaches has almost no bearing on our road back, other than our ability or inability to recruit players due to our school's name. Last year has a little merit for comparison only because it's a baseline for the same players and coach.
You've got to look at our team in segments of half or even full seasons to get the proper perspective to judge. Looking at just last night, which was awesome, you'd have a very different impression than if you had only seen the ASU game. I think he's capable of being a very good coach under the right circumstances, but I'm still on the fence with [Redacted] due to a number of unresolved questions, and no single game is going to change that.
Here's the Good, Bad, and unresolved:
The Good:
- Three points on his resume point to his ability to turn things around or rebuild: the Nuggets (turnaround), AF (solid records), and Colorado (turnaround) stints.
- He appears to be able to identify under-the-radar talent that can help his teams (Burks, Fischer, Codi M-M (he's blown up but there could be more than 1 of this type in next year's class; credit for 1 for now).
- One of the lingering questions is around his ability to recruit top 100 players head-to-head. While next year's class isn't full of these guys, landing Moto was both a big surprise and a big statement in favor of his ability to do so.
- The team is playing hard and they're playing together for him this year. The players that remain seem to be on the same page and to have bought into [Redacted]'s system.
- Even with a dearth of talent and very few players that can create their own shot, the offense looks as good as I've seen a Wake offense look. Big plus on X's and O's ledger.
- We consistently score coming out of timeouts and out-of-bounds situations. He seems to have an excellent feel for what's happening within a game, and this is another plus in the X and O department.
The Bad
- Starting right at the top, he inherited a pretty tough situation last year in terms of returning talent, injuries, suspensions, etc. He then proceeded to do about as poorly as possible with that situation. We were going to be bad, and instead ended up with historically bad.
- 1-31 in road games in BCS conference play.
- 0 career NCAA tournament wins.
- Poor history in conference tournaments.
- Very importantly, he lost the interest of the fan base early on. While maybe unrelated to his coaching ability, he's going to have to regain that support and interest to get attendance back up, or his tenure won't be very long. He may have to seriously exceed expectations next year, which will put a lot of pressure on him and the players.
- His teams are historically very poor offensive rebounding teams, generally among the bottom 10-15% of Division 1 in OREB%.
Unresolved Questions:
- The turnover in the program has been a large part of the problem. His VERY high expectations for his players have alienated a few and created the dearth in talent we now have. This happened at Colorado as well. What this shows is that he has the potential to fail magnificently with other's players and that he's not the motivational type of coach that can get every type of player to buy in. Last year and this year are the result. The outstanding question, since he hasn't stayed anywhere longer than 3 years, is whether this is a terminal problem for him where players will always have issues with him, or whether, with his own recruited players, he can attain a stable, successful program over the long term.
- Can he recruit and integrate a front court with the size and ability to man the middle while fitting into his offensive philosophy? He's never had a classic center and maybe he can succeed without one. But his teams have to rebound at a sufficient level to not get manhandled.
- Can he continue on the momentum of landing Arnaud Moto and the 6-man 2012 class by landing 1 or 2 top 50 (or near top 50) type talents like McClinton or Gill? It will take a few of those players (think Mckie on our current roster) to reach the level of success it will take to be considered successful here.
- And the ultimate question: assuming he can build a stable program with some talented experience in most years, what is the peak he can get our program to achieve? Will improved offensive performance result in a consistent tournament team (7 of 10 years)? Will he be able to land 1-4 seeds to set us up for runs? And finally, will he be able to play to or above seed in the tournament for us to make deep runs. Regardless of what he's done to this point, people's vantage point on this question will ultimately guide their view of whether he should be our head coach.