If I had to guess Pitino is going to Iona because he wants to go to Iona (apparently their major donor and he owned a horse together). Also, our AD doesn’t think we have a mediocre coach so that’s why we are staying with him for now. What we think doesn’t really matter.
I read Pitino has a relationship with the AD, which makes sense. He's absolutely radioactive in the coaching world for multiple reasons. Most programs would have somebody throw their body in front of that hire before ever letting it happen.
"What we think really doesn't matter" Maybe that's part of the problem. Is Brad Edwards out of touch with the Mason fanbase? Does he sense the desperation and deep desire for us to win and be great?
As much as I would like to "win", this is the sort of hire puts the school in a bad light. What sorts of values does it represent? I want my institution to stand for something other than a winning basketball team. Not a good look for any institution, let alone a Catholic one.
Look what happened to VCU (and VCU had depth for days to start the season). Look what Bona looked like without Osun. Imagine Davidson minus JAG or Grady for the entire season (plus the two they already lost, because that's about equivalent to what happened to us). Last season we had Otis with a nagging knee, Grayer's foot, Reuter's hips, Mar's foot, and Boyd's wrist, that's four starters, including our best player, and our 6th man, all hobbled.
But like all those teams still were better than us this year. Davidson had less healthy scholarship players than us by the end. VCU finished better with 4 guys out towards the end, Bona has three good players that are all sophomores and was light years better than us.
Davidson only had 6 healthy players? We had 7. You also thinking Davidson finishes better than us had they lost JAG and we had a healthy Kier? I don’t think so.
Like I said, let’s have a healthy damn roster and see what happens. Think about this, though, VCU lost to us before the injury big truly hit, only Marcus Evans was clearly injured. Jenkins played, Williams played, Vann played , Evans played but was limited. All it took to derail them was a not 100% Marcus Evans.
So that's about 250K more than what Dave makes. Will Mason ever have the courage to pay a basketball coach a million or more a year?