There were fans at the end of Dr Toms tenure ready for a change (I wasn't) More then some as I seem to remember anyway did. They felt the program had plateaued. (it pretty much had) Granted the plateau at the time then was like 3 strait NCAA tourney appearences and as we know he never lost in 1st round. So going after the hot new thing in Alford was a popular move at the time thinking he'd get them to final 4s... I can't remember the exact timeline as to how fast he was hired but it was fairly fast I think in relation to the end of that season.If I recall correctly, it was primarily the AD looking for a change. Stevie Alford was the next hot thing so they went out and got him. Just saying Fran has given us BB similar to Tom. I personally liked Tom's coaching style much better than Fran's. Tom got a heck of a lot more out of the players he had.
As far as getting the most out of his players I think Fran is ok at that. Aaron White, Devyn Marlble, ring a bell? The flip side to that might be Woodbury but regardless of where he went he was who he was. No coach was going to turn him into a stud. If you want to say Frans teams play no D and have had lackluster results with pg recruiting I can get down with that. But Fran has had some under the radar guys really become cornerstone type of players too.