Been posting/lurking since 2014 and this is my first time getting this kind of reaction, I’m honored.
I did not like the Beard hire in the first place because he played an aesthetically awful brand of basketball at Tech and seemed like an asshole. Last year we were a preseason top 5 team and didn’t look that different than the regular middling dreck that Shaka put out. It was nice to win that tournament game and it was clear that Beard could scout defense well.
This year, if you recall, we lost to a middling Illinois in the same manner we lost a bunch of dumb games last year - going cold on offense, missing FTs, etc. Then he was gone. The Gonzaga game, in retrospect, seems fluky as hell (at least that it was a blowout) given that was the last time Hunter could hit the broad side of a barn. Was he building something? Maybe. But again, we were preseason top 5-10 in 2021-2022 and celebrated winning one tournament game. Yes the media is dumb and should’ve noticed there was a reason that all of our old transfers hadn’t left for the pros yet, but I feel like we didn’t tolerate that shit from Shaka and should’ve expected better.
Anyways, all I was saying was that I’m not convinced the record is particularly different with Beard vs. Terry this season. Whether Terry can build the program long term seems like a bigger question, and it does seem like Beard had that in a better direction.
If Beard was the one who identified Sir’Jabari Rice, then I take back all my underwhelmingness and am very whelmed.