I’m not going to rehash all the things I dislike about Rob Murphy as a coach. He hasn’t changed his approach since he’s been here, so many of us have been saying the same things for years.

But today was a bellwether day, because it showed definitively and finally that Rob Murphy is not a coach that will ever get us to the NCAAs (or even NIT). Because of that, he should be replaced whenever it is fiscally possible to do so.

Some of Murphy’s supporters will say that EMU was simply unlucky today; that Detroit got unsustainably hot from three, and some guy name Long played the game of a lifetime. Others will say that EMU will never be dominant in basketball and that we should be grateful for the product it has. Strangely enough this line of reasoning was used to support the retention of Ron English for years.

The point is this: Detroit, with a roster of scrubs and borderline D1 players, was able to beat EMU at home BADLY. It wasn’t even close. Detroit is in year 1 of its rebuilding project. We are supposed to be MAC title contenders.

We deserve better. Much better. The athletic department reads this site, and I want them to know that astute fans know who Rob Murphy is. I don’t ever expect EMU to be Akron or Kent State and have a decade-long period of dominance. But, we should have a coach capable of consistently leading us to the top four in the conference, with an NCAA appearance once every 5 years. That is my minimum expectation, and that should be yours too. Murphy has given us years of evidence of failure. Time to move on.