jcru wrote:Harrick is a move very few AD's would have made. Ron Petro did, but it was because many different factors lined up at the same time. Not to mention they screwed their "negotiations" with Skinner, and that team needed a coach badly, that was one of the most talented collection of players we have ever had, most in their senior year, just like this past year.
Ron Petro was cruising to the end of his career as well. Thorr is younger than that, his career is still building, it's still on the upswing, no way he risks his entire resume over hiring Rick Pitino or that ilk.
I do believe Harrick was a risk that succeeded and paid off some big dividends, short term. But the complete fumble after his departure is what hurt the program. People honestly believed Lamar Odom was going to put off his lottery pick an entire year to stay with Jerry D, when he wasn't even academically eligible to play anymore. They only kept him academically eligible on a wing and a prayer for that one season. It was reportedly bad, the academia involved were on the verge of revolt, it was such a farce.
Things were not like they are now. Since the hire of Baron, this has been a legitimate program, with real student athletes and real expectations. I give Baron credit for that at least. He had a low ceiling, but he at least established a foundation. I was the one who first met him at the 5th Quarter Club meeting with the infamous track suit and "maybe an NIT in 3 to 4 years" comment. Basically, his we have to grind our expectations down to a halt M.O. You know, based on what he was seeing behind the scenes when he first took the job, maybe that was a legitimate concern. It seemed like the only top recruit holdover was Woodward and the tallest guy on the team was 6'5, we couldn't even field a front court.
Make no mistake, Jerry D was hired under false pretenses, and when you do that, you get burned, big time. The Fast Break Club had that dinner with the "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" moment, which helped solidify Jerry as the "consensus" hire to "save the players". When you lie to everyone else about the reality of what is going on, it's bad, but when you lie to yourself, it's worse. You hire a guy strictly to "save the players" and then more than half of them leave anyway, it's more than just shooting yourself in the foot, you might as well take a hacksaw and cut your feet off, "Misery" style. And call yourself Stubby.
You can't blame Harrick for that. They should have just looked for an up and coming young coach and rebuilded, but no one seemed to want to admit that a rebuild was necessary, they were high off of three straight NCAA appearances and didn't want to hear it.
That’s a good take on the late 90s, but that situation is different than what we have here now. With the talent on the roster (there are not a ton of contributors left from last year’s team, but the three main ones are very high caliber players for our league) and what is incoming (possibly best class in the program’s history), a rebuild would be tragic. The best case is if you can hire a qualified coach who can keep the talent and the culture in place (note: a qualified coach, not an unqualified moron like Jerry D). And it seems like we can. So let’s do that and not risk setting the program back by several years with an outside hire or destroying it completely with Rick Pitino.
(I’m going to stop mentioning Rick Pitino soon, because he is not a serious candidate, but people keep bringing him up so I feel like I have to.)
