Durham was a mixed bag for me. He signed some tremendous players early, but never capitalized on his Final Four appearance in '83. Gradually, he became so cantankerous that assistants had to keep recruits away from him on visits to have a chance to sign them. To me, a lot of his success depended on his assistants and their ability to recruit talent. He was not a bad in-game coach, but he didn't change with the times and update what he ran, which is surprising because he was really smart. We've never had a HC who was a consistent recruiter, putting multiple back-to-back classes together and building a deep bench.
I think was far and away our best X&O coach. He just oozed basketball knowledge. It's just a shame that we didn't defend him and stand up to the NCAA. What he was canned for is small potatoes. We showed neither him nor his players any loyalty. I said when Harrick was fired that it would take us 10 years to recover. I was generous. It's been, what 19 years now? We aren't close.
