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Self-inflicted punishment. See if you can spot the reference to our former coach (and, no, I'm not referring to either Alford or Lute) in Mark Titus's PAC12 preview:
The Pac-12 preview - look out for Arizona's Aaron Gordon - Grantland

A lot of value to what he implies about the lack of logic involved with hiring new coaches; a trap that I, myself, have fallen into many times when it comes to hiring a new coach.
For those of you who don't want to read the whole article, here are the pertinent slam quotes by author Mark Titus for Grantland:
"UCLA hiring Steve Alford is probably the most intriguing new hire in the country, but I don't want to waste time discussing whether a guy who brushes rape under the rug and struggles in the postseason will find success at a program that has fired or requested resignation from each of its last five coaches. I think we can all guess how that will play out."

and this one that the OP likes:
"Instead, I'd rather talk about Andy Enfield at USC, who further proves my theory that at least 80 percent of the value of any given season is placed on the NCAA tournament...
Look, I don't necessarily think Enfield was a bad hire for USC. Truth be told, I have no clue how well he'll do, which is the point I'm trying to make here — hiring a head coach based on two games is insane. I understand why it happens and I don't have a problem with it. If I were an athletic director I'd probably do it too. But it's truly insane. When I take a step back and think about how this happens every year, it makes me wonder what the hell I'm doing with my life. Why am I writing about basketball when I could go get a coaching job at a tiny school, grab an upset or two in the NCAA tournament, get hired by a big program, collect my millions, get fired after three years, and then spend the rest of my days counting my money? Todd Lickliter was on to something."
Looks like more people than those in Iowa understood the Lickliter situation.
 


I liked the penultimate section, and I suspect most of you will, too:

Most Compelling Story Line — Referees

Pac-12 officiating is so bad that I'm not even sure where to begin criticizing it. Maybe the Sabatino Chen buzzer-beater at Arizona that was called off? Maybe the technical foul called against Sean Miller because he said "He touched the ball"? Maybe the fact that said technical was probably called because the head of Pac-12 officials offered a reward to any ref who rang up Miller? Even the football refs in the conference are awful, if the Arizona State–Wisconsin fiasco is any indication. What's especially terrifying is that all of that happened in just the past 10 months.

"But," you might be saying, "you ***** about Ted Valentine all the time. If other conferences' refs are better, why is Valentine the only ref you ever call out by name?" The answer is that there's a distinct difference between Valentine and the Pac-12 officials. I go after Valentine because most Big Ten refs are actually really good, and he's the turd in the punch bowl. I know his name because he stands out. I don't know a single ref in the Pac-12 because they're all terrible. Beyond that, I think Valentine could actually be good if he wanted. That's not exactly a good thing, but it's not something I think I'd be able to say about the Pac-12 guys. There's a difference between trolling and just being incompetent. Valentine is what you would get if Paul McCartney chose to not play "Let It Be" or "Hey Jude" at his concerts and instead just stood onstage and made fart noises with his armpit. The Pac-12 refs, on the other hand, are William Hung.
 


Not reading 12 pages of Pac 12 bb **** looking for a vague reference to a former coach.
In other words, tl;dr
 








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