Is how he managed to survive past year 4 or year 7....it's a borderline miracle.
There has been a lot of talk about the "dumpster fire" CKS inherited. For perspective, VBK was 43-53 in his 5 years in the conference, and won 20, 18, 19, and 20 games overall 4 of those years. Fogler was here 4 years and in years 1 and 3 he had losing conference records btw. Yes, he won the SEC his last year, but that was with a bunch of transfers- his recruiting was notoriously poor.
CKS was 21-43 after 4 years, and 44-68 after 7 years in the conference, with a best finish of tie for 3rd in the old SEC east and every other year we were in the bottom half of the league. He truly was doing just enough (or really not enough) to hang on- the '03-'04 sweet sixteen run (off an 8-8 conf record) and the '07 team both probably saved his job.
Since then he's been 83-67 in the conference over an 8 year period, with 1 SEC tournament championship, 1 sweet 16, 4 NCAAs, won over 1/2 conference games 1/2 the time (and only 3 losing records in the past 12), and 1 breakthrough 12-4 season- and all of that was obviously in the first 5 years of the last 8.
My 3 takeaways would be:
1. It's a miracle he survived year 4 in particular. Horrible records, Billy Richmonds etc. he really should have been gone.
2. I need to give him more credit as some Of you have pointed out for raising the bar the past 12 years. Only 1 bad by historical standards seasons and generally competitive teams with better players
3. It seems obvious that CKS doesn't handle the pressure of expectations very well. Our "best" under him still hasn't been great, and his best teams all seem to underachieve, and the teams all seem to play tight. Forget the tournament results for a minute- for Jenkins, Ezeli, Taylor, Goulbourne teams to go 9-7 and 10-6 in conference their last 2 years is just ridiculous- and we seem to be headed that was again this year.
There has been a lot of talk about the "dumpster fire" CKS inherited. For perspective, VBK was 43-53 in his 5 years in the conference, and won 20, 18, 19, and 20 games overall 4 of those years. Fogler was here 4 years and in years 1 and 3 he had losing conference records btw. Yes, he won the SEC his last year, but that was with a bunch of transfers- his recruiting was notoriously poor.
CKS was 21-43 after 4 years, and 44-68 after 7 years in the conference, with a best finish of tie for 3rd in the old SEC east and every other year we were in the bottom half of the league. He truly was doing just enough (or really not enough) to hang on- the '03-'04 sweet sixteen run (off an 8-8 conf record) and the '07 team both probably saved his job.
Since then he's been 83-67 in the conference over an 8 year period, with 1 SEC tournament championship, 1 sweet 16, 4 NCAAs, won over 1/2 conference games 1/2 the time (and only 3 losing records in the past 12), and 1 breakthrough 12-4 season- and all of that was obviously in the first 5 years of the last 8.
My 3 takeaways would be:
1. It's a miracle he survived year 4 in particular. Horrible records, Billy Richmonds etc. he really should have been gone.
2. I need to give him more credit as some Of you have pointed out for raising the bar the past 12 years. Only 1 bad by historical standards seasons and generally competitive teams with better players
3. It seems obvious that CKS doesn't handle the pressure of expectations very well. Our "best" under him still hasn't been great, and his best teams all seem to underachieve, and the teams all seem to play tight. Forget the tournament results for a minute- for Jenkins, Ezeli, Taylor, Goulbourne teams to go 9-7 and 10-6 in conference their last 2 years is just ridiculous- and we seem to be headed that was again this year.
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