For those in this thread that seem to enjoy the warm waters of negativity, a history lesson.
Marshall has had 27 men’s head basketball coaches in a little over 100 years of existence. Of those, most were unremarkable, mostly with losing records or around .500 marks. A select few had much more success. A even smaller group had success in their first season at the helm.
Here, they are:
Carl Tracy - 23-4 arguably the greatest season ever recorded .852
Rick Huckaby - 25-6 followed Bob Zuffalato, and several holdovers were huge contributors
.806
Bob Daniel’s - 20-7 followed Tacy, still had Mike D running & gunning .741
Greg White - 20-9 followed Billy Donovan, who would win back-to-back nattys at UF .690
Tom Herrion - 22-12 followed Donnie Jones, who had just completed a 24-10 campaign before being hired away by UCF .647
Cornelius Jackson - 20-13 who followed DD after a mirror image 13-20 .606
When you look at these 6, it’s reasonable imo to assert some of the success they enjoyed was due to the holdovers coming back from the previous season. 4 of those 6 fall in this category, most notably Herrion, who would fake a heart attack during a live play (!) before being exposed a sham in his profession.
So, that leaves 2 to examine. Tacy, who was preceded by Stewart Way, came in with the nucleus of Lee, Knoll, Collins, Mike D, Bill James & co, and parlayed that historic run into a successful career at Wake Forest, and
Jackson, who is the only one in this group to have followed a losing record with a 20 win inaugural campaign. He is also the only one on this list who had to wholesale bring in nine new players to fill out his roster.
Pretty incredible accomplishment.
Only time will tell, but I choose to be optimistic when it comes to the future of the men’s program with 🌽 at the helm.