getting your teeth kicked in as a Big East newbie. Then when talented players started committing they let him go. His record while indeed awful should have no bearing on how he should be judged as a coach. Fuzzy was in way over his head McCleod knew how to coach and took the job when no one else would.

I thought they were a Big East bottom feeder, but 8-10, 7-11, 8-10 wasn't as bad as I thought. Given where they came from, there was reason to anticipate a continued upward trajectory even if we hadn't made a coaching change. I'm not familiar with MacLeod's recruiting chops, but obviously Murphy was a huge get. Did Carroll commit to him or to Doherty?

Mac wasn’t going to lead us anywhere. Had he stayed we would probably be mediocre mostly, sometimes good, rarely terrible, mostly not very interesting. As a fan I wasn’t heartbroken when he was let go, and the little inside stuff I heard made me think players generally didn’t love him, though they didn’t hate him. His NBA pedigree was a selling point and maybe he would’ve been the perfect guy for Swanagan, Graves, and Murphy, but interest in the team was really cratering by the end. I’m pretty sure every team he coached at ND had an NBA player on it - a really good one. He also had a lot of guys transfer out. Very hit and miss as a recruiter.

You could make lemonade out of those lemons if you could cut corners and get kids in that would be marginal academically. ND obviously wasn't going to allow that to happen. John Mcleod knew basketball and he knew how to coach.

While I think an additional year with the talent that roster had would have been a suitable reward for what he gave to ND as a program, to get rid of him in favor of getting Rick Majerus, while (as Section12 mentioned) mercenary, would have been the right move.

Getting rid of Mac for the Carolina Lunatic, OTOH, was not fair to Mac.

I realize that wasn't the original plan, but par for the course for ND to monkey-fuck that basketball.

...pondering that image in your last sentence.