112 your summation is one of the more fair and complete I have seen. The Norm's Kids argument doesn't hold a lot of water because Lavin/Dunlap used those kids in a way Norm didn't show himself capable of doing in his 6 years here (Hardy/Brownlee were our two best players - Norm brought them off the bench, Lavin/Dunlap used them like our two best players). That being said, it was a decent situation to walk into for that one year (veteran team with some talent that was willing to be coached up). The problem is beyond that year Lavin was left with nothing, needing to build from scratch, so I agree with you on some expecting too quick of a turnaround (myself included). It's a tall order.
That said, after three years it is what you said it is: the overall talent level has improved at an impressive rate that I doubt many other coaches in America could have matched; the play on the court has certainly not improved at the same rate, has likely plateued, and has arguably regressed. There are reasons for that, but it is not a comforting trend nonetheless. Improving the talent level isn't enough, at some point it has to transfer to better play on the court. We aren't seeing that yet on any sort of consistent basis. Next year his first full recruiting class will be Juniors. Need to start at least seeing better play, if not results.
This is close, but I don't agree on all points. Like others, I've held my fire for a few years, but I think there's enough of a sample now to make some observations.
Year 1 was a good situation for Lavin to come into. He had a team full of seniors and he knew he would have a blank slate to work with the following year and to do what he does best, which is recruit.
However, there was no "coaching up" in Year 1. He handed the ball to Hardy and let him be the show. He got a pass for that (with me, anyway) because (1) it worked, mostly and (2) I could see not bothering to implement a system with a dozen players who would all be gone.
Year 2 was a non-Lavin year, so there's not much to say about it.
Year 3 is troubling in many ways. The Year 3 offensive approach is the same as Year 1, which is to say that there isn't one. After two years the zone is still totally ineffective. And if your offensive "strategy" is to create turnovers and score in the open court, then playing zone makes no sense anyway. The only common element I can find between the defensive and offensive "philosophies" is that neither of them requires very much actual coaching. The word "lazy" comes to mind.
Moreover, if your have no real coaching skills and your stock in trade is recruiting talented players and getting them to play for you and to play together, the various transfers and suspensions are a sign that even that isn't working so well for you.
None of this should really be a surprise, as anyone who watched Lavin's UCLA teams saw exactly the same thing - a bunch of talented players without much structure and no discipline from the head coach. You got who you thought you were getting here - a recruiter who is a frankly terrible tactician and is willing to mostly let the inmates run the asylum. Looked at another way, the anti-Bob Knight.
Having said all of that, if everyone returns then this is easily a Sweet 16 team next year - despite the deficiencies. If you look at it objectively, going into the Pitt game you had a team with either no center or a developmental center (depending on whether Obekpa played), no other big men to speak of (a staff miscalculation), no true point guard for much of the season, and a roster with zero upperclassmen ... yet was still in contention for the NCAA tournament.
If everyone returns, then next year you will have a stacked frontcourt, an extra shooter, a full year of Branch, and a bunch of upperclassmen. With that roster, you should be a top 2 or 3 team in the new Big East, win 22-24 games, get a decent seed in the NCAAs, and make a run.
Lavin is who he is, and that's who he's always going to be. And even with all he does wrong, he will still bring in enough talent to be competitive every year. It wouldn't surprise me if he makes the NCAAs every year for 8 years from next year onward, and makes a couple of deep runs based on player talent alone.
It's just not going to be pretty to watch if you like basketball as a sport (as opposed to as an athletic sideshow) and you will have these periodic eruptions of nonsense.
Hopefully he will find someone equivalent to Dunlap to do the things he can't or won't do, which would hopefully minimize some of those issues.
