TOS was a good guy who got a bad rap in Athens, merely because he followed Larry Hunter. He was far from a brilliant basketball coach, but I always enjoyed my interactions with him. Hope he does well in retirement.
To each his own, I can find just as many people who were turned off by his personality and aloofness. In my case, following Larry had nothing to do with it at all. Coaching is a business and they come and go. The next guy up does things on his own merit. What we essentially received was more expensive coach who gave the same 19-20 win results with 1 MAC title, high turnover rates, and a much larger budget.
He also gave us some pretty good memories and lots of good players.
Leon Williams, Jeff Halbert, Sonny Troutman, Tommy Freeman, Jerome Tillman, Mike Allen, Terran Harbut, Whitney Davis, Jeremy Fears, Mychal Green, Kenneth van Kempen, Bubba Walther, DeVaughn Washington, Justin Orr. And who can forget Marin Bota, who rumor has it may still be bouncing around the NBA.
And if that shot by Florida skims the rim instead of falling into their hands he might have joined John Groce, Danny Nee and Jim Snyder in the group of Ohio coaches to have won an NCAA tournament game.