Quote Originally Posted by MuskiePimp23 View Post
I'm generally curious to hear from the people who say this is a "home run hire" and "has more upside than Mack." He has 13 years of head coaching experience has been to a whopping 4 NCAA tourneys and won a grand total of 2 games. Not getting to the 2nd weekend twice but the 2nd round. Twice in 13 years. Where is all this upside and home run hire coming from? I see a guy who would have been fired years ago had he put up these results at Xavier and he was already fired from Monnesota. I think this is a terrible hire on a guy who will either be fired in 4 years or leave for a bigger program in 4 years. Either way we're starting over.

Mack left for Louisville and everyone knew that would always be a possibility with his wife from there and wanting to move back there to be closer to her family. Mack has also said he wants to retire at a young age in mid to late 50's which he is there now. If Mack missed coaching that, bad I trust him a lot more than Miller or Pitino to be at X for 8-10 years before officially retiring.

Also watching Pitino on Red Storm rising, I get the impression he does not want to work as hard as his dad to have that kind of success. Seeing him there versus his dad was very telling and not in a good way. I remember walking away from that thinking, I'm really glad he's not our coach...and now he is.
1. He was 30 years old when he got the job at Minnesota. 30! Think about how young that is.

2. It's Minnesota, they've only been to 14 tournaments in their history and Pitino took them to two of them. He got them their 2nd highest seed ever since the tourney expanded in 1985. Won the NIT in his first year.

3. New Mexico had not been to the tournament in a decade before he got there. He just went to the last 2.

4. He is pretty young still (42) and eager for high major success that he has never had. He is not on the last leg of his career like Mack.

5. Plays at a fast tempo and was 20th and 23rd in KenPom defensive efficiency the last 2 years.

6. The talent he recruited to NM has been pretty astounding. 2 guys were transfers this past year and ended up as AA's. Then he had Dent the POY in the conference this year. The guy clearly has an eye for finding talent with lesser resources.

7. Beat UCLA, Marquette, Colorado State (twice) this year and gave MSU all they could handle.

8. I am excited for a new perspective and a fresh start in our program.

9. We are going to get National attention at times throughout the season like we have never seen.

I was getting pretty excited for Mack but that would have been a safe, boring hire. Before we turned Mack down I was on record worried about his motivation. He has always been a guy who has made it clear he isn't a lifer coach and he's already 55. By other accounts as well his assistant did all the heavy lifting with recruiting. A LOT has changed since Mack was a high major coach.

Mack also literally had ZERO other suitors this offseason with a lot of pretty good jobs open. If he wasn't a former Xavier coach, and winningest coach in our programs history, none of us would have been interested.

Too often our program has taken the safe route. Most of the time that has worked out but it has also burned us bad. I like taking this new route and I think it presents us with a much higher ceiling even though the floor may be lower as well.