(12-15-2020 09:43 AM)MemphisFan95 Wrote: (12-14-2020 10:13 AM)geosnooker2000 Wrote: Yeah, I grow weary of the revisionist history about Coach West. He was great. Just lost his drive, and had a bad couple of last years.
The revisionist history that he sabotaged his own career by deciding to stop recruiting?
There is a clear line drawn between great performance and good recruiting, and poor performance and poor recruiting based on everything below.
- The heart attack
- Spending too much time on unrealistic targets
- Frustration at the lack of action backing up the promises to improve facilities
- Loss of motivation
- Questionable lifestyle choices
After we started winning, I remember very distinctly, being in on quite a few high 3* and 4* recruits, and reading about how our performance was getting us in the door. TW swung for the fences and it was exciting, but the problem is that we didn't land many of them. Then came the heart attack. Then came at least one apology by TW about his actions in social interactions.
The way I look at it, if TW was able to win with bad facilities, he should have been able to keep winning. Most other programs won more than us, and not all of them have better facilities or a bigger budget. Having said that, IF let's say in 2005, there were renovations to the LB, they started building Tiger Lane, and they started construction on the IPF; I'm pretty sure that things would have turned out differently.
The blame lies with both sides, but ultimately there was no excuse for completely running the program into the ground. Maybe the heart attack took all the fight out of TW and instead of quitting, he figured that cashing checks was a fair outcome for being lied to, and working for a POS like RC.