we’ve hired sean miller within days of:
•Rodney Terry losing in a play-in game
•Shaka losing as a favored seed *again* in the first round
•Rick Barnes going to his third consecutive S16
•Chris Beard taking Ole Miss waaaaaayyyyy beyond where they should ever be at this point in time (currently up on 3 seed isu 63-43 with 11:27 left, with a roster of guys who will never play a minute in the g league)
within that context, the sean miller hire- unfortunately- feels like a letdown. is he going to be RT or shaka? nope. 0.0% chance of that. he is easily in a different class from them. but- is he going to be a better coach and program builder than beard or barnes? if you’re being honest with yourself, you know that the answer is probably a resounding “nope”.
he’s a safe hire who should placate the fans, and frankly, i’m not even mad at it. i simply have to accept that i’ve been fooled. i really really thought that with the foundation that Beard had laid, and with how evident it is that the right coach is worth more than 12 top flight recruits (barnes, beard, pitino, hurley, golden, oats, pearl, sampson, just some of the recent examples of this), that we were going to go all out to make the home run hire, and if we couldn’t hit a guaranteed homer that we’d at least swing for the fences. instead, we took a six pitch walk. not bad, but not great either. not what we wanted. not what we were hoping for. not when the program is down 3 in the ninth.
there’s reason to believe that things will be better, but miller has a lot to prove before there’s reason to believe that he can take us to the final four like barnes, or have us at no.1 in kenpom like beard. it’s the safest hire possible. don’t love it, but i don’t hate it either. i just have to support it and hope that miller is reborn.