Milon Potentially Leaving
In an early post when the Shaver news was breaking, I wrote that while I didn’t like the move, Huge obviously wants to win and she isn’t dumb, so she must have some high degree of confidence that the players aren’t going to leave. That theory seems to be unraveling quickly, though I understand the foolishness of my initial thought. The players wouldn’t come back if Huge hired some unknown doofus like me to coach, so it really all does depend on two things: 1) the new hire; 2) the camaraderie between the players (ie are they wrapping their arms around each other and saying they’re going to stick around for that last chance at the magical run together or are they fracturing and starting to look at things more individualistically in reaction to a firing decision that signals lack of loyalty and is diminishing trust with the school/admin).
I have zero knowledge of what’s going on with #2, but at least with #1, no one knows anything until the hiring decision is formally announced. So it’s hard to know where everyone ultimately ends up when the dust settles. But man, this is painful to see when we felt so much optimism just 10 (long) days ago and now the house seems to be falling apart one brick at a time.
New thought: I wonder if the players felt stung by the decision, not just bc of how Tony was treated (assuming they liked him ... again, I have no inside info on any of this) but bc that decision also suggests that the admin doesn’t have confidence that this team can get it done next year with Tony at the helm. Which, since Tony is clearly not a bad coach (plenty of debate on all the other threads about what he is, but clearly somewhere between neutral and terrific), that decision also could have slapped the players around a bit.
I’m encouraged that Chase made it clear that we are still one of his “top options” and JP felt the need to send his clarifying tweet (and Milon hasn’t said anything publicly) - neither of which needed to happen and wouldn’t happen if they were 100% out the door, so there’s a chance the team stays together.
While this seems awkward and potentially unprofessional, any chance Huge talks to JP, Chase, Matt, Nate, etc to find out what it would take for them to stay? I mean, she has to look at this with a multi-year lens, so she can’t put too much weight on the opinions of any one person / player, but I just don’t see how she could ever talk about the Shaver decision and make it look positive in any way for herself if the entire set of stars on the team (a team that all agree at least has a chance to achieve her stated goal) defect. So what does she do to salvage this situation and keep the team together?
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