When we hired Howland after Ray, I wasn?t thrilled with the hire since he didn?t even win a title with all that talent at UCLA. Also he really fell off at the end of his career. We all know I wanted Kermit instead, but that?s here nor there

Year 1 and 2 he gets a complete pass. I usually don?t let coaches get a pass with not much improvement for 2 years but it was a big mess and I gave him a C+

Year 3 was a solid B. We got screwed that year and should?ve been in the tournament and made a nice NIT run. Missouri, Alabama a few other teams with losing conference records and worse overall records had no business being there over us. Not Howlands fault

Year 4 was a bit disappointing. No complaints with non conference and starting to feel maybe I was wrong about the hire. Got an A- from me in non conference. That fell quick when we started conference play terrible. Not a great SEC tournament showing or great final SEC record. Team should?ve been a 3 minimum 4 based on talent. Then the Liberty loss happened which was inexcusable in every way. No excuse for that team not to make a sweet 16

Year 5 was by far the worst, even worse than this year. All that talent and not even being on the right side of the bubble. Losing to terrible non conference teams and no excuse for not being a top 12 team. This was atleast sweet 16 but elite 8 team. We weren?t even going to make the tournament. He got a big D- for that

Year 6 I could actually live with these results had Year 4 and Year 5 went as plan. Since we will be 5-8 and 11-11 after today, he is just barely hitting expectations. He needed a big year to make up for his underachieving year 4 and 5 and year 3 to a small extent.

At this point, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Cohen will hire a complete nobody and it will be Rick Ray 2.0. I just hope Howland keeps us relevant for the next couple years until we get a new AD and he retires. All we can hope for at this point or we somehow make sure Cohen has no say in the next hire