palestra38
Professor
Posts: 32835
Reg: 11-21-04
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03-05-24 12:57 PM - Post#364557
In response to Columbia 37P6
I look back to Penn when Dunphy left and Miller won a championship with his seniors. Then, because Dunphy had whiffed on 2 straight recruiting years, Miller had to start from scratch and couldn't do it (although his last class ended up tied for a championship with 1 game to go under Allen)--flamed out and was gone in 3. It's not as though he forgot how to coach---he essentially was the coach for the national championship UConn team doing all the work while Kevin Ollie took all the credit. It's HARD to start from scratch as Engles had to do , and he missed on a couple of classes while then getting hit by the pandemic. But clearly, his last 2 classes are notably better. CU has had 1 team since Rohan in 1992 that won more than 8 games (and 8 only happened once). Smith had done clearly worse than Joe Jones until that last season with 10 wins and he had missed then with 2 straight classes. He was not likely to have done much better than Engles had he stayed. I disagree with the unrequited love the CU posters give to Smith here---he had one good season and a bunch of bad ones and left when he did well enough to get out with a better offer. I go back a long way with Columbia basketball (although not as far as Chet and company---although I played ball at Dodge Gym in law school and remember the "dead spot")---the record is tough for everyone who has coached there since Penders. If a guy shows an upward arc, you want to lose his recruits for next year and start again? Really?
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