For the past decade this program was a joke. We aspired to make the NIT and many years we were on the bubble for that. Have we forgot? Now we as fans are expecting to make the NCAA tourney and if we don't, its a bad year. The staff deserves an extension, we are improving every year, they know what they are doing.
Surprisingly, the majority of the fan base actually has forgotten how bad we were for the past decade. At least, that's the only explanation I can come up with for the amount of hate for this regime.
It amazes me how Lavin supporters like yourself and others use a horrendous stretch of basketball to compare Lavins accomplishments. Why not compare with him with Looies tenure on the job. Sure Looie had some faults and was not great in the end but certainly superior to Lavin in a much tougher Big East conference. And another thing I don't understand is that if you watch the team play game in and game out with no semblance of offensive structure, a lack of fundamentals , which many love to blame on player IQ ( which is nonsense), and just overall team chemistry ( players sulking on the bench, others refusing to go in) and an obvious poor use of team personnel ( note Max and Marco), how do you justify the continuance of the Lavin experiment?
The one good thing, perhaps, is that since it us quite obvious that Lavin will need NBA all star talent to be successful it may keep the pressure on him to recruit high caliber HS players. The downside to that is if he does not, the party's over.
Because:
1. To expect any coach to be as successful as Louie is not realistic.
2. College basketball has changed a lot since the Louie days.
3. We were a dead program. Jarvis/Roberts took us completely off the map. To have expected Lavin to snap his fingers and make us a consistent tournament team was unrealistic.
It's also funny to me that there are little to no complaints about the offensive structure when we win. The offense looks great when we win! Although it doesn't really change much, it's all about execution. There were little to no complaints about it in Lavin's first season.
Snap his fingers? He has had four years and four recited classes to make the Big Dance with his players. If you think back to our little win streak when many misguided individuals were posting such absurdities as "Apologies To Coach Lavin" which was all but laughable, a good portion of the streak was due to the hot shooting of Dlo and Jakarr. I will give the devil his due with the great defensive effort the kids made, especially in the Creighton game, but that was very short lived and is the coaches job to keep the ball rolling. However, those who know the game were still commenting on the lack of ball movement and offensive structure in all but a few games.
Agree that we were dead for sometime, were two of the worst coaches in school's history ,but being in Macy's window, ( which is the only thing that Lavin accomplished) is good on the surface until you fail, then everyone notices.