(07-22-2020 11:41 AM)NJDuke97 Wrote:  Always felt like Rowe was a bridge in many ways based on the timing things going on with JMU Athletics and JMU MBB- stinks you punt on a major program for a few years and essentially give an unproven guy a shot to cut his teeth at JMU but that’s what ended up happening. I think both JMU and external candidates were more ready to take over the program and bring it back to a high level this go around.

JMU has screwed up this hire way too many times to call it a bridge.
This hire was almost identical to Dillard except that Dillard had more experience as head coach (not much success, though).
Keener was another disaster hire.
Brady was the closest they ever got to getting it right.
Rowe was just going back to same broken strategy for coaching. I remember them saying he would bring excitement back into the program and being very underwhelmed when they introduced him.
At that time, the new arena was no longer a dream.. it was happening. I remember at the time feeling like we really needed some success before we got to the new arena.
I really wanted our first year in the Bank to be building off of success from the previous year. In a way this Covid thing did them a favor. While I'm excited about Byington, the average JMU fan may not be on board right away. We've been bad for so long it's going to take time before the fan base catches on. Having the first year in the arena not being full was a missed opportunity. Thankfully for the admin, they got a pass.