a case could be made that he did as much damage as Jarvis.
Go ahead and make it.
Sure why not.
Norm inherited an embarrasing scandal depleted team. However he also inherited the best two players he ever coached.
While it is true he lost some scholies, as he proved later on he was not a good recruiter anyway, so how much did that really hurt him?
The fan support was great his first couple years. No one expected anything and everyone was behind him. He was in a no lose situation.
Many schools have come back from scandals. Baylor, Kentucky, every school Calipari leaves. It is not like we received the NCAA death penalty.
He had the built in excuse of blaming Jarvis which he beat to death, burned, buried, dug up, beat some more, re burned and buried again only to dig up and beat whenever the need arised.
Though he did not inherit a good situation, the school had been to an NCAA as recently as 3 years previous.
NOW FOR THE NEW COACH
Team has been a basketball wasteland for going on 8 years. It is an after thought with NY players openly mocking it.
Kids have no idea who Barkley, Bootsy and Postall are let alone Mullin and Berry.
Schools like Uconn, Louisville and Pitt have been sucking the area dry for talent and that pipeline will have to be broken.
Though he was a terrible coach who played a terrible style of play, using Norm as an excuse will not work the same way as using Jarvis who was a polarizing figure.
Our style of play was so awful that even with a new coach kids will still remember our 17 point halves and 50 point games. A new coach will almost have to play an uptempo game even if that is not his prefered style or the fact that he won't have the personal to do it.
The fans now having sat through 8 years of truly disgusting basketball will not have nearly the patience that it showed for Norm.
The defense rests.
I think I made Clarence Darrow proud.