Quote Originally Posted by KB21 View Post
Did she really turn ODU around though. They were consistent 17 plus game winners under Karen Barefoot. Nikki comes in, and they immediately go from 17 wins to 8 wins and then back up to 22 wins.
I haven't kept up with this at all but I keep on seeing posts about it so it's finally taken root. Barefoot coached at ODU for six seasons and finished with an overall record of 73-60 (.549) and conference record of 50-29 (.633). Her final two seasons there they finished 5th and 6th in their conference, which was about her average across her six seasons. (Their finishes range from 8th to 4th in their league.) So she was mediocre to ok, depending upon your perspective.

Problem was that Barefoot was replacing a legend named Wendy Larry. In her 24 years at ODU, Larry took them to 20 NCAA tournaments, seven sweet sixteens, two elite eights, and one national title game appearance. I mean, damn, she won her conference tournament for 17 years in a row. She won the regular season conference title in her last season at ODU, but she hadn't made the NCAA tournament for two straight years. That led ODU to refuse to extend her contract -- talk about a short leash, jeez -- so she retired.

Barefoot was an assistant under Larry at one point so I assume that they were hoping to continue the magic when they hired her. But they didn't, and then she randomly resigned and went somewhere else after six years.

McCray came and, as you said, took them to a new low in the 2017/2018 season. But then they bounced back bigtime in her next two seasons, finishing 5th in the league in year two and 2nd in year three, which was their best season since Larry's tenure a decade ago.

That's a pretty small sample size, but yeah, ODU was trending back in the right direction when McCray left to come to State. Not saying it'll work here, of course. I just felt like looking junk up.