Re: Don't discount the coaching.

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

Hi Jim,

You're right about the coaching being a factor. Isiah almost single-handedly
kept the Pacers from the playoffs last year, and he may do worse this time
around.

But that got me thinking again about Jim O'Brien. Let me preface this by
saying I know that college and pro coaching is different. Still, anyone who
witnessed what he did to the University of Dayton program can understand my
concerns. Here are his season-by-season overall and league records at
Dayton:

22-10, 10-4
14-15, 8-6
15-15, 5-5
4-26, 3-11
6-21, 1-11

There's no question O'Brien did a nice job taking over for Pitino, but his
track record as the head man isn't inspiring. The Dayton program only
recently started to recover (Oliver Purnell had them at 15-14/6-10 in his
second season, so it's not like he had to wait three or four years to
replace all of O'Brien's players).

Anyway, I'm willing to give O'Brien the benefit of the doubt, but I'll
always have the UD debacle in the back of my mind.

Mark