Keep in mind Mr. Wade while the "stuff" you were during your previous tenure helped make you successful it was against the rules and most schools weren't doing the same "stuff". Now everyone can do what you were doing within the rules so success may be a bit more difficult.
Are the 247 portal rankings a reliable indicator? Looking at them the Leonhardt guy from Utah Valley has nice stats but is ranked around 60th among guards.
One way to look at is he can't do any worse than his predecessors. I'd like to suggest Bob Huggins as an assistant. He'd definitely bring toughness and defense to the team.
Pope is in a defensive mode, Cal 's ego took a shot and he couldn't help but respond. Remember an old Cal quote, paraphrasing: I'm italian, you kill one of mine, I burn your village.
He probably was in a bad mood and wanted to return fire after getting his behind handed to him. Neither he or Pope are putting fear into the rest of the conference much less nationally.
I watch CNBC quite a bit. Couple days ago in their news segment they mentioned the firing. Scott Wapner,!the host said he lost his best player, kind of rolled his eyes and said glad I don’t make these decisions. Kind of a negative reaction but not on a sports media outlet.