May be a rollercoaster ride, but it won't be a lack of effort.I think we are about to see the difference between strategically recruiting to build a cohesive team vs recruiting only the highest available players. Using a cooking analogy, randomly combining the best ingredients in a cooking container/pot won't assure a great tasting meal. The quality of the ingredients won't matter if they don't blend effectively to enhance the taste of the other ingredients. Coach Pope realizes that just randomly signing the best available players to build a team won't likely produce a good team if the individual players don't blend well to effectively enhance the unique skills of their teammates. If just one ingredient/player is off, it is likely to ruin the entire meal/team. I believe Coach Pope is going to show us that if the right diversity of players, some average some very good, are brought together, they can become a great team. This is going to be a very exciting upcoming season to watch playout.
Pitino"s first team finished 15-15 and the effort was amazing.
They got better every year and I won't be surprised to see the same from Pope.