Quote Originally Posted by Cvillehoops13 View Post
I think Mooney would be able to keep and win with most of the current roster, I also think that his teams the last few years have played a similar tempo to what VT teams have played under Greenberg and so I don't see the connection there. Third his style perfectly fits several members of this team, specifically Doe Doe and Eddie, look at the kind of guys Georgetown puts out on the floor - long rangy kids who are matchup problems coming out to the perimeter. While Mooney does run the Princeton offense after his first two years at Richmond he sped it up and it really isn't far removed from a number of offenses you see in college basketball right now. On defense he's mixing man and a 3-2 zone.

Ultimately I believe you have to simply hope the kids in place stay put and that your incoming head coach has the personality to do that, but if not I don't think it's that big of a deal. I think Mark Turgeon and Tony Bennett will be successful and they have endured significant attrition, I think Frank Martin will be incredibly successful at South Carolina and he has lost several key players already. You just have to take your lumps, if this current group was so outstanding that it was important to keep them together as a very high priority Greenberg would still be the head coach in the first place.

The best example I can give you of a coach being hired to keep the recruits and current roster intact was Dino Gaudio and despite having tremendous talent Dino alienated a good number of people and never took that high level talent on to accomplish much of anything.

Ultimately a good hire is going to build the program up and win regardless of what the current roster/recruits do. Jeff Bzdelik isn't a bad coach at Wake because of what he was left, he's just not a good coach. Conversely Steve Donahue was set up for a disaster this season with the roster he was left and the attrition endured at BC yet he has shown that he has that program headed in the right direction even after taking lumps and enduring even more losses, because he's a very good coach.
You could argue that BC and VT went thru similar transitions. Skinner had been around a while and kind of wore out his welcome (for different reasons than SG). The guy they hired, Donahue, was probably not a "big name" vs. the guy he replaced. Yet he has shown that he's a good strategist and I agree that BC is headed up.

I'm wondering if a Prohm or someone similar could be VT's version of Donahue.