The Dude wrote:

The clear success stories, at the time, were Jarvis, Penders, who took a good roster to the Dance in his first year (we've seen many good rosters fail to make the dance before and after) and Mojo who pulled off 20 wins after tremendous turmoil of an off-season.

But this is a sport about recruiting talent to your program.  As I noted above, Hobbs and Lonergan were losing a lot but the turnaround recruitment was on board and you could see the brighter future ahead.  

 

Dude, you should probably refrain from using words like "clear", as in "the clear success stories were...".  For example, you say that Penders was a clear success story but that Hobbs, who won 2 A10 Championships and reached the NCAA's three consecutive years, was not.  MoJo literally coaching solely Lonergan recruits was a clear success story in your mind but Lonergan himself, reaching an NCAA tournament and winning an NIT Championship, was not.  What's clear in your mind may very well be unclear in practically everyone else's.

Now, if your comments only had to do with a coach's first season at GW, it is clear to all that Penders was coaching Jarvis's players and that MoJo was coaching Lonergan's players.  Each took over highly successful programs.  Hobbs was coaching the mess that Penders helped create and Lonergan was coaching players who were recruited by Hobbs to play a completely different style of play.  JC, too, inherited a mess which we all hope we are coming out of.  Jarvis is the exception here, a coach who truly elevated the program during his first season at GW.

And, if your comments only had to do with a coach's first season at GW, this also was unclear to everyone except you.

Dude, if you're referring to me, well, wrong again.  The only GW head coach that I wanted to see fired within their first 2 years was Tom Penders, who I never wanted to see hired in the first place.  MoJo is an unusual circumstance.  Like many, I felt he was in over his head and felt badly for him moreso than I wanted to see him fired.  By the time he was released, almost everyone understood that it had to be done.

And just so you are aware, it is entirely possible to be opposed to someone being hired, and even being critical of that coach during his first few years, without wanting them to be fired.  I realize that this is a nuanced notion that is likely to be completely lost on you but thought I would mention this anyway.

This is yet another false narrative being promulgated by The Dude.  To his way of thinking, if you don't want a coach hired in the first place, that must mean you want him fired.  If you're critical of a coach as his team struggles over his first few years, that must mean you want him fired.

Of course it does not mean these things.  What most fans want for this program is for JC to succeed, not for him to be fired.  For this upcoming season, the expectation should be nothing more than some real, incremental progress.

Yes, it generally takes time for a new team to learn to play together.  It's very beneficial to a team like GW's that the NCAA has relaxed/changed its stance regarding the amount of time a team can practice together.  Not only do official practices have an earlier start date (somewhat commensurate with an earlier start to the season) but the amount of time that teams can convene over the summer is substantially more than say ten years ago.  

That said, IMO, it's misguided to compare teams that were comprised primarily of freshmen (which was primarily the case with KH's and ML's second seasons) and today's JC team which is extremely reliant upon the play of more experienced transfers.  Many freshmen have to get used to the speed, power and athleticism of the college game.  It's been said often how they need to hit the weight room.  This simply is not the case with transfers who have a far greater understanding of what to expect, and what's expected of them, in the college game.

Comparing KH's second year team to ML's second year team is a very fair comparison.  Comparing JC's second or third year teams to either is not.