Quote Originally Posted by Dawgology View Post
It?s a fringe sport and we were at the top of it. Then we lost the leader of that and royally fumbled the coach hire. Additionally, fans watched the team fall apart, transfers, arrests, etc. plus looking terrible and embarrassing on the court during games. Plus a portion of the fan base was turned off due to the politics of the new coach (I never tracked any of that I don?t with any coach). It?s a recipe for a full on disaster and a primer on how to kill a program quick. It took several years for Vic to build the momentum and fan support this program had and it will take at least that long to get it back assuming they start have success on the court again.
NMP is a clear bust in hindsight, but I don't fault Cohen for it. Even coming close to replacing Vic was a practically impossible ask. He was one of a tiny handful of elite coaches in the sport, and the gap to the next tier is massive. There doesn't seem to be much due diligence you can do beyond taking a shot at a disciple of one of those elites, which Cohen did. I don't know how much of her propensity for political expression was known prior to her hire, but regardless I highly doubt it would have mattered if she'd been a better coach. Bottom line is we were fortunate to have our run and it was always very unlikely to be sustainable after Vic no matter who we hired.