I've been thinking about this "He coaches in a lower conference" thinking. Coaching in the CAA might theoretically mean a variety of things:
- The opposing coaches are not as "good" as in the P5 conferences.
- The players are not as initially talented as those entering P5 schools.
- The players are likely not as big, tall, or athletic as those entering P5 schools.
- The facilities you have -- training, video, technology, transportation -- are not likely as robust as at P5 schools.
But all of those things should be, generally speaking, as true about one program as they are about another. UNCW would not have to face stellar athletes on a night-by-night basis, but then UNCW would not HAVE stellar athletes on their team, either. For every advantage that UNCW might gain by "only" having to play CAA schools, there is an equal disadvantage that UNCW should have by being a CAA school itself.
The coach is the one exception. The coach (and his staff) can in fact be a huge difference maker. he can be a better communicator, a better teacher, a better recruiter, etc. That is probably true of every conference -- most of the schools in a given conference will have a lot of similarities in terms of the facilities, salaries, training techniques, accommodations, etc. It's up to the coaches to teach better and recruit better to really make a difference.
So it seems to me only logical to focus on conference records when you want to evaluate how good a coach is. Putting Izzo in charge of the average CAA roster would not net the same results as with his MSU roster. Odds are, that CAA roster would not be as good a team. If they played a host of other P5 teams, they'd likely lose a bunch. But, I think we'd likely say that the Izzo-coached group might begin to out-perform the other CAA teams, due to Izzo's initial skill as a coach, but then also due to his ability to recruit a higher-caliber player (within the realm of those considering CAA schools in the first place).
So given that, when you look at the Big Ten right now, and see Groce struggling, you see that he is actually winning conference games pretty similarly to how he performed in the "lower-level" MAC. (I'm discounting some losses last season due to the crazy injuries, and thus am over-weighting his first three seasons and this season). He was not a world-beater in the MAC conference games, and he's not doing any better (and only somewhat worse, in the B1G). I'd contend that given the "access" to better quality recruits and better facilities, and yet facing "better" coaches and opposing programs, he's the same coach.
All of that leads me to believe that a guy like Keatts, who has to deal with the same limitations as his conference opponents, and yet who races out to the front of that conference pretty much right out of the blocks and then maintains that position for three seasons, is likely to be successful in whatever conference he is placed. Yes, more of his opposing coaches are likely to be good, so his advantage may decline somewhat, but his skills will remain.
Note: Certainly there can be bad fits and bad luck where previously successful guys just seem to "lose it" for a bit (see Weber at the end of his Illinois career), but across a large sample size of many coaches and many years, these things seem to find their level (see Weber "finding it" again at KSU).
That same reasoning is also why I'm not as excited about Cuonzo: He'll likely be the same guy with the same results at Illinois as at Tennessee and Cal -- solid recruiting, good teams, top half of the conference, off and on tournament appearances with an occasional win. All of that is a LOT better than Illinois has seen recently, but we'll quickly grow impatient for every-year NCAA appearances.