I feel like this post could have been added to one of the 15 threads about firing Saul.

In reading a few recent tweets from Jason Arkley, it seems he is a Saul and Schaus apologist. If only Tony Campbell wouldn't have broken his foot, we'd be singing Saul's praises today.

Please.

Our misfortune on the injury front has nothing to do with the caliber of Saul's recruits.

Just a terrible string of decisions by our AD with respect to this program.

If we don't hire Jim Christian, whom the players hated, we wouldn't be in this position today.

I remember reading that Ball State's players hated Coach Rick Majerus when he first got there (whom I am not comparing to Coach Christian.) The Cardinals went 14-14 Majerus first year and went 29-3 the next year with basically the same players! The next year Majerus went to Utah and Coach Dick Hunskaer took them to the Elite 8 only losing to UNLV after the Cardinal had them on the ropes, losing by one bucket. UNLV blew out Duke in the championship game (the Blue Devils lost by 30.) Ball State gave them the closest game of the whole tournament.

The idea that players are suppose to have warm, fuzzy feelings about their coach is beyond my understanding. Those Ball State players who didn't like Coach Majerus at first, but later said he really made them become the players and the men they are now. Also, when Coach Majerus got to Muncie the talent level of that squad made our starting lineup look like Buffalo on steroids. The same squad that eventually ended up 29-3 and came within a bucket of making it to the Final Four.

I'm not sure I 100% buy that. He's helped a few of his former players get into the coaching ranks.

And, what if JC had stayed? It's not as if his last recruiting class here that he left for Saul was full of world beaters. A thought worth considering anyway.

Which is funny, because during last season's debacle Saul got a little testy with Arkley during a presser.

And if Cooper misses the shot against Akron then Groce is still here.

I think people here too frequently make the mistake of viewing career choices in a vacuum as if the coaches themselves don't have additional context and relationships that are informing their decisions.

Your thought process here is basically that Ohio is a better job than Gardner-Webb, and therefore Holtmann would have jumped at the opportunity to leave Gardner-Webb.

But that misses the point entirely. The Ohio job would have to be better than the Butler job, not the Gardner-Webb job. At that point Holtmann's exactly a year away from taking the Butler gig. He understands the trajectory of his career and the sorts of opportunities he's likely to get; hell, he probably even knows Brad Stevens well enough to know he's interested in an NBA job the Butler job could well be open soon, and likely has a good enough relationship with Butler's AD to know that in that scenario he'd be a top candidate.

The Ohio job doesn't just have to be better than a coach's current job. It has to the as good as or better than that coach's NEXT job, too. That's why I think Boals is a tough hire for OU, and why I think it's overly simplistic to say we could have bought Holtman out of Gardner-Webb.

Good stuff here...but why was another thread created on this topic?

And I just read Arkley's tweets. Man...he just won't really tackle this issue. And he really does look like a Saul apologist saying that basically all would have been fine in the Saul regime if TC didn't break his foot???? Come on man. I get that Saul and Schaus won't discuss this topic on the record for obvious reasons. However, we are at the point of the season where Arkley has to start addressing it as the guy who covers this team closer than anyone else. You don't need quotes from Saul and Schaus to write about it. Grow a pair and discuss the future of Ohio basketball that is going to make a major change in roughly 45 days.

Twice in a few weeks, we agree. Hell is freezing over....oh wait, it almost literally is in Ohio.

Anyway, totally agree - seems time to start asking the questions, and writing about the responses, followed by his own lines of thinking on the topic. Seems odd that it's being avoided with almost half the MAC season behind us.

At this pace, we'll be exchanging Christmas cards soon....haha.

It is still all about March in the MAC. Maybe Ohio will get lucky and win some games in Cleveland in March. March was a good month for Groce, so maybe Saul can get some of that luck going his way.