It was a massive screw up to hire Pope. The majority wanted Cal gone, but we did not have a home run hire lined up to replace him. We apparently pursued Drew and Hurley and got turned down by both. Then, we panicked and hired Pope. The problem is that is not a one season mistake, it is at least a 3-4 year mistake. Pope is a clean cut genuinely good guy. You can’t fire him after slightly overachieving last year with a team he had to assembly late notice. Then, of course this year we are “missing three starters” and still going to make the tourney. If you fire Pope it looks like we just have totally unreasonable expectations. I hate to say it but the quickest scenario to improvement might be for Pope to have a totally healthy team next season and have a terrible record and miss the tourney. Then, you could let Pope go and try to get a better replacement. Unfortunately, I think it’s more likely we assemble a team for next year, hang in the 20-40 ranking, make the tourney, and go out second round. Of course, that will be just good enough for a 4th year of the same. This could drag out several seasons. I know there was no way to force Hurley to take the job, but missing out on Hurley was just a huge miss. That is the guy that could have prospered here. UConn lined up to be a 1 seed and make another deep run this season.