I don't know who should be fired. But this team doesn't look well coached. Doesn't take a basketball expert to see that. These guys are getting paid good money. Much more then the last staff. Nit is not good enough
NIT isn't good enough based on what metric....the staffs income? Kentucky has had 5 straight top five recruiting classes. Cal makes more than our staff combined. They're in the NIT. Baylor has had top recruiting classes. They are in the NIT. This is year 3 for Lavin, who missed year 2, and has had 2 recruiting classes, turned over an entire roster and have no upper classmen yet the NIT isn't good enough in year 3? Sure Kentucky lost players to the NBA, so did we. They still have a plethora of top 100 talent, so does Baylor.
We are not Kentucky, we are not even Baylor. We don't have their talent or budget, yet we are playing in the same tournament they are. Lets put this "not good enough" or "we should have been better" talk to rest and put things in prospective.
So because Cal had a bad year, it's OK for us to be bad this year?
That's not how this works.
This season's SJU team had enough talent to be in the NCAA tournament. Not only did they not reached their goal, they imploded down the stretch. On the court, and off. Losing 7 of 9. The best player being suspended indefinitely, and several in game skirmishes that culminated in actual punches being thrown.
do I think it's the end of the world? No, I do not.
Do I think it's fair to say we're better now then during the Norm era? No, not at all. Because that was historic ineptitude. Whoever we hired, at the very minimum, was expected to achieve more than Norm.
Do I think it's appropriate to say "it's ok to be where we are, because team X, who historically is very good, is also struggling at the moment." No I think that's equally misleading. Some good program will always be experiencing a down period.
Kentucky didn't lose some players to the NBA, they lost 6. They also won a national championship last year, and Baylor was in the Eite 8.
We returned 4 of 5 starters, added two highly regarded recruits, and a talented pg transferred in.
We should've been better than this. We aren't obviously, but Lavin is entitled to some slack and some benefit of the doubt. He's enjoying that now. That won't be the case indefinitely.