Is there anything that happened in the last few years that should keep us from hiring him? Is he trouble? It appears that he might be a mixed bag. Lots of potential upside if you hire him, but there also appears to be a lot of downside. I think it is of note that his last class at UCLA was ranked #2 in the country and included Shabbaz Muhammad. He also won the Pac-12 the year he got fired. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/25/sports/la-sp-ucla-howland-fired-20130325
That SI articles illustrates many of the problems. Basically the west coast AAU guys think he is a royal ahole and didn't play ball with him. Far less of a problem at Tenn than UCLA of course.
I've always thought he got too wrapped up in trying to get the best classes which didn't for his coaching style.
I think it's a major red flag, and it's why Howland isn't the one I hope we get. I previously unpacked this position in the Howland thread several months ago.
It's not a good thing if he squandered it. I mean, I don't quite get the circle jerk over Howland. Corky from Life Goes On can get to the final four if he has two future perennial NBA all-stars on his team. Oh, and other NBA role players too. If the guy deserves credit, it's as a recruiter. And if we're convinced he bring those types of talents to Knoxville then he'd be a good coach for us. But he probably can't. And not once in his career has the whole of his team beenbetter than the sum of its parts. But circle jerk away.
If his only success had been at UCLA, I'd understand why you keep making this point. But he took over Pitt when they were complete shit and took them to the Sweet Sixteen twice. And then recruited future NBA players at UCLA. If he can't recruit Pitt (circa 2000)-caliber athletes to Tennessee, we should just give up basketball.
Nah, we just need to hire some ADD Generation American Idol winner type fu©kwad like Andy Enfield. That'll fix it.
if he wasn't damaged goods to some degree he wouldn't be available to tenn. his track record suggests that he can do it again. worth the risk IMO. what's the better alternative?
he also recruited nationally. something forgotten by people that discount what he did about ucla is that ucla had been to all of 3 final fours since wooden before howland got there. it's a complete misconception that it's easy to win at ucla. you have a lousy fanbase, donors that except championships but aren't willing to pay for them, and until recently rather mediocre facilities (even the new stadium isn't anything special). the only real upside is it's not a hard place to recruit to.
Reading about his "feud" with Tim Floyd last year couldn't have made me happier. USC and Pat Haden are getting exactly what they deserve: a spineless piece of garbage that doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.
