McPeachy said:
TwoTone said:
How is a 17 win season that got him fired a losing season?
MWC losing season. 4 of them in a row...at .500 or less (only one at 7-7).
Yes, Buckymac was / is a better coach than Heath, but let's not think he was Jesus Christ and walking on water.
Sad that our program has sunk to this level...that we are hindsighting McClain and praising how "great" he was... :twisted:
Exactly. I think we can all agree (at least everyone on this board, I know a few people on other boards don't) that McClain>>>>>Schroyer. But really, in Heath Schroyer we are talking about the worst coach we have ever had on the hardwood.
McClain's program was heading the wrong direction overall. I have zero doubt that we would have been better off keeping him compared to Heath, but I also don't believe the bar needs to be set that low. As McPeachy pointed out, in McClain's last 4 seasons we were 23-37 in MWC play and 57-63 overall (or thereabouts). That's better than Heath (15-33 MWC, soon to be 16-48 or so), but hardly grounds for celebration.
This is why I am so stridently anti-Burman. McClain had issues and I understand the move, but what a giant missed opportunity to hire a quality coach. Ewing, Jones, Platt, Okoye, Taylor, and maybe Spencer (although I assume he wouldn't have made the grade regardless of the coach) was a pretty solid nucleus. Coming off of a 7-9, 17 win season, that is a group that was good enough, along with a couple of added pieces, to be a contender. Yet, instead of going out and hiring a quality coach, Tom brought in his buddy. Worse than that, they used off the court excuses (APR, etc.) to try to mask the poor quality coaching that was going on by Heath's staff.
The rebuilding job that faces the next coach is monumentally more difficult than what was there 4 years ago. The right coach at that time really could have had the Pokes bounce back quickly. The nucleus of players was there and the fanbase was not that far gone. The attendance was still around 6k and the 10k years were only 4 years removed. The next coach will face a 4k attendance, 8 years removed from relevancy and a roster that is not ready to compete at this level (although I like each of our players individually and I don't mean to single them out as the problem, but cumulatively we don't have the talent level right now to compete in the top half of the MWC).
There is no reason why such a difficult hire should be made by someone who has proven he is incapable of doing so.