Bennett is well on his way, Beard is well on his way. Stack is going to do very well. Fife is someone i really like. Rhoades i like a ton. Do you think Pitino will be ? How long will you give him to win the conference ? It is ok to be wrong, i will miss on some of my names but i will not wait 10 years for a conference title. Early conference titles are a great forecast of long term success.
Teague was a slimeball with poor abilities. He was Villa 7 driven a wasted his time there. That is not where he got Pitino whom was not part of Villa. He could have had Buzz Williams who had the backing of several hall of fame guys. He went for winning the press conference which is a fatal error because it is fan driven not goal driven. UW did not win the press conference on Bennett, Ryan, Gard. UVA did not win the press conference with Tony Bennett, Fans wanted Tubby ! They got the grand slam guy on the backing of K, Knight,Jerry West, Izzo who all knew what he already was. Nova did not win the press conference on Wright but they had the courage to hire the right guy. Smart, tough, charismatic as hell. All backed by basketball people. Coyle got endorsements from the best in the business on Fleck. Time will tell. Pitino could do it here but he better do it damn soon. That ability to do something big in the 1st 5 years is a great predictor of success and proven historically. How long do you give someone to win the conference before you know they can not ? I said over and over i support this year.
Built, your judgment of Pitino is getting comical!
Pitino (37 yrs old) was thrown directly into the fired and had to learn on the job in the B1G, a very unforgiving situation. You are not holding your "guys" to the same standards. Many of those coaches that you listed got to learn to be a HC at the DIII or CC/JC levels, not anywhere near the B1G level. Here is a quick summary of the guys you listed. They may all be very good coaches, but not held up to the same standards that you expected out of Pitino.
Coach Beard: 46 yrs old, first became a HC at Fort Scott Community College, Seminole State JC, went back to being an assistant for ten years under Bobby Knight, then was a HC on an ABA team, then McMurry University and then Angelo State before he got his big break at Arkansas – Little Rock and now Texas Tech.
Coach Fife: 40 yrs old, His HC experience amounts 6 years at IPFW in the Summit conference where he had a 0.458 winning percentage with only 2 winning seasons! I guess his claim to fame is that he was an assistant at Indiana and is currently an assistant at MSU.
Coach Rhoades: 46 yrs old, His HC experience was 10 years at DIII Randolph-Macon where he started winning the Old Dominion Conference title his 3rd thru 6th years and had an overall 0.722 winning percentage. That allowed him to become an assistant at VCU for 4 years and then the HC at Rice for 3 years where he had an 0.475 winning percentage. He is now the HC at VCU with two winning seasons.
Coach Bennett: 50 yrs old, has been a star as a HC with only his last year at WSU and his first two years at Virginia being near 500 seasons.
It is obvious that you disliked Teague and do not respect the way he hired our BB coach. It seems like you are letting that influence your opinion of Pitino. You didn't like that other "more qualified" candidates were passed over, you didn't like that he was very inexperienced, you think he was hired "because of his name", you didn't like that the normal channels (like talking to you) weren't followed, etc... But you have to get over it and judge his talents like other coaches. Even with his "learning mistakes" he has season with 25, 24 and 22 wins and has got us to the NCAA twice. That is not yet good enough, but it is far from the D coaching grade that you say he deserves!