I think he's done a good job rebuilding this program. He's improved the talent level tremendously.
This is the first year that's been a slight disappointment. But they were only a win or 2 away from what I thought they could be. Hopefully we can put a run together in the NIT and everyone comes back. If so we should have a real good year next year.
I'm on board with your analysis, JJ.. I think I predicted 23 wins this season and sweet sixteen. Close on win total, at least...lol.. I think the biggest disappointment was clearly the slow start. Losing all three games against Penn St, Syr, and Wisco really set us back early on.
0-5 to start BE play did the team in. Almost impossible to comeback with no room for error at that point.
I think this team can be very good if CO comes back next year. Would be dumb if he declares, but what can you do?
0-5 start and the to loss Depaul were big. Even with that...if we could've gotten a win vs Nova or Xavier we might be on the right side of the bubble. Every game counts.
Personally I think everyone overestimates the talent on this team. I don't think we are in the top 16 talent wise in the country despite everyone complaining that we have sweet 16 talent. I think we finished about where we should have. Nova was more talented and Creighton has McDermott...I think we are close in talent to Xavier and Providence. Biggest problem this year was one dimensional players and Sheed's adjustment period.
But I'm more patient than other fans. I did not expect any coach to come in here and have us in sweet 16 by year 3 (not counting first year because we had a full roster and Lavin came in late recruiting wise). I think Lavin has us on track for sweet 16 next year though.
I'm hoping he can pull recruits out of his ass again this spring so we can sustain momentum going forward.