I am extremely happy with the first two AC hires. We lost three because we chose high impact fast turnaround type hires and it was a huge success. We now can play the long game from a position of strength. We have outstanding guards,solid post players and versatile wings available for the next two seasons. There has been minimum upheaval so far and I have faith in JW and Coach Underwood to steady the ship.
Illinois must be weighing the top options, trying to lure their top pick or possibly waiting for a pro to exit the playoffs.
I...L...L...
What do these statements even mean?
I don't believe guys are evaluated in the lens of, this guy is going to make a mild impact and slow turnaround vs this guy is gonna be high impact fast turnaround. You simply choose from what you think are the best guys available that fit your coaching/recruiting philosophy and always with the expectation that you will be able to turn it around and compete quickly. You don't consider anything less than that.
What long game is there to play and what is our position of strength? Especially now that players can transfer at will, expect to see lots of departures with even minor coaching staff changes (not saying that this will necessarily happen to us). However, these nebulous ideas are the types of things that can destroy you. It's a cutthroat arms race and a tactical challenge, and you need to bring it every single year if you want to compete for championships.
In hindsight, I think one can reasonably argue that BU struck gold in assembling the previous staff, and the final payoff was a ranking and seeding that we could have only dreamed about. BU's hyperbole scares me because of how high the bar has been set, and he has a lot of pressure on him to assemble anything worthy of the previous staff.