You left out these:
"Stans is the winningest coach on campus and in our school's history."
---> At one time, so was Ron Polk and Jackie Sherrill. Should we have let them continue?
"You expect us to beat Duke, North Carolina, and UCLA."
--> No, but I expect to beat Duquesne, East Carolina, UC-Santa Barbara, and I am not sure we could do that right now.
"Any team would struggle minus their two best players."
--> True. But does that mean they would lose back to back home games against middle tier teams from one-bid leagues? The answer to that is no. I know examples are not always the complete story, but Pearl did a pretty fantastic job last year when he booted Tyler Smith, suspended three others, and went on to the Elite Eight by year's end. If you want to argue that UT had more talent to sustain that loss, I would thank you for helping make my next point.
"We are not deep nor talented."
--> We targeted these guys. We signed them. What we do with them from that point is our responsibility. Riek is clearly a waste. I have no idea why Bolen redshirted other than GPA. Maybe he's not on scholarship. Beckham would not start for most of the teams we have played thus far. Bailey had some limited potential until his injuries. Now he is our leading post player. Bryant was supposed to step in to some of Stewart's role. He's not as good as Stewart was when he was a freshmens. Smith I won't give up on yet, but still not seeing much. Lewis has as much feel for basketball as Michael Jordan did.....for baseball.
"I'm not willing to take a gamble on a new coach when Stansbury has won as much as he has."
--> I think this is the most legitimate argument out there. There certainly is no guarantee that we would improve ourselves with a coaching change. Because Rick HAS been moderately successful, there probably exists a slightly larger chance of regression than their does of improvement. In that regard, he's a victim of his own success. But to say there is no one out there who could take this program to greater success is just failing to acknowledge reality.
I've never once said here that Stansbury should be fired. Still feel that way. I do think, as I have said before, he should be forced to change his staff and, if the rumors are true, to not micromanage everything so much. Cunningham, Grant and Brooks are three guys who don't seem to bring much to the table. At least one of them needs to go, to be replaced by a coach whose sole job is to teach fundamentals, to gameplan, and to advise Rick on in game strategy (like sub patterns and timeouts). Nothing wrong with letting your assistants do the work while you take home the big paycheck. Look where it got Gene Chizik this year.