In Reply to: Homeland made 3 final fours so I don’t see much similarity*. posted by DCfan on February 14, 2026 at 21:41:58
Ben Howland's demise largely stemmed from inability to get the hard-nose players that plays his trademark defense. He was able to get the tough-minded players like Arron Afflalo, Lorenzo Mata in his first few years, hence the success. After that, it's a huge dropoff in the physicality department.
It's similar with Mick Cronin, who has decent success in his first few years when he had the players to play his grind-it-out defense (see the 52-50 win over Michigan in the elite-8 game), but stopped getting the physical players he needed to play his defense.
Have you noticed Mick Cronin started playing zone defense more recently? Ben Howland also was forced to play more zone (which he dislikes) at the latter part because he didn't have the players to play his man-to-man defense.