Nate Oats has made exactly one Final Foul with Alabama. He made the S16 this year. We have half the board saying Pope had a ****** season his first year when he made the S16.
Oats has ran the SEC since being at Bama, a football school. Alabama has the most wins in the league since hiring Oats. It wouldn’t be quite the same but that’d be like Stein having the most wins in the SEC 6 years from now.
This year was Oats worst in many years and it was still better than Pope’s best of his career. If he can do what’s he’s done at Bama then you’d be a fool not to think he wouldn’t do even better here.
Besides, there’s only one clear cut better option than Oats and I don’t see Hurley going anywhere. Especially if he wins #3. Other guys like Golden or May are at the same level of Oats.
One thing is certain, UK is going to have to pay out the *** to get a legit coach. All these schools with proven guys are locking them up with big money deals because UNC is looking now and they know we will be next year. If UK can’t get one of the 3-4 guys that would basically be a sure thing then I’d rather they just hire Pitino for a 3-5 year stopgap to get the program back on the right path while hopefully other coaches prove themselves. The absolute LAST thing that needs to happen is UK making another bad hire or even a hire that “might” work out. A guy like the ISU coach or Hoiberg is someone I’d put in that category.
UK is going to be in an almost identical situation next year that they were in back in 2008, maybe worse. We’ll be even further removed from a final four or title than we were in 08 and we will likely be coming off back to back seasons as bad as 07 and 08. That was a do or die hire when UK got Cal. It’ll be the same do or die situation next year. We were another bad hire from being IU in 09 and we’ll be another one from being them next year as well.