That's not entirely fair.
I did not make my bones by being entirely fair.
The idea that he inherited an NCAA team is based on the fact he took them to the NCAA's not because he inherited a team that played in one prior. That is a huge difference. Mike Jarvis inherited an NCAA team from Fran, why? Because they went to the NCAA's the year before and returned Artest, Postell, Ty Grant, Bootsy (who would become eligible) and the top HS PG in the country coming in. 10 seniors or not he inherited a team that went 5-13, 6-12 and 6-12 in the BE in the 3 years prior to his arrival, hardly evidence he inherited an NCAA team.
The evidence that he inherited an NCAA tournament team is that the team he inherited went to the NCAA tournament. Refute that. Pro tip: you can't.
Furthermore even if you grant the fact that he "inherited an NCAA team" by definition he had to essentially replace an entire roster, you can't blame that on him. In other words you can't have it both ways, you can't say he inherited all those seniors and then dismiss the fact that he had to replace an entire roster that he inherited.
I'm not dismissing anything. He had a year to replace an entire roster that went to the NCAA tournament based upon the goodwill he inherited by being a vacuous talking head on ESPN. I understand that. But comparing the situation of a first year coach who inherits 10 seniors to one who inherits Felix Balamou is at best disingenous.
Furthermore
For the record that's two furthermores
by his 3rd year he had a 8-10 NIT team in a much more difficult conference (cannot compare the current BE to the old BE. Not even close). By his 4th year he had arguably the most talented roster at SJU in a long time even without Harkless. With Harkless it would have been right there with Villanova in the BE imho. This is where you can argue he underachieved and did not do enough. Because that is where I would agree. But either way 3 20 win seasons and 4 NIT/NCAA seasons in 5 years is not good enough. That is fine. It shouldn't be, we expect to be at a level commensurate with Nova. No reason they can't.
We can agree on this to the extent that you've implicitly stated that Lavin was an awful coach who didn't know what to do with the talent he assembled. To the extent that we don't know what Mullin will do with the talent he's assembled in his third (and really his second year) of recruiting, I'm happy to wait and see. Mullin might suck. I don't expect he will, but he might. Pronouncing that he does is premature. And pining for the previous regime is insane.
But Mullin did not inherit a mess of a program.
WTF. He inherited a roster of shit in a moribund program that has not won a tournament game this century. A program that has been in disarray for 40 years. He inherited nothing.
<slight hose for clarity>
The harder part is NOW.
Agree. He needs to show something this year. He needs to win the winnable games and split the maybe winnable games and lose the losable games repectably. If he doesn't the naysayers have a point. But two years into it it's much too soon for the sky to be falling.