Let's look at the facts:
In year one Keno's Friars went 19-14 with a 10-8 record in a Big East conference with four of the top six teams nationally (final AP poll), six of the top 25, and four 2009 lottery picks.
He had inherited a 15-16 (6-12 BE) team. Not a single Friar was even named honorable mention All Big East and they beat a Syracuse team starting two McDonald's All Americans and, of course, #1 Pittsburgh.
Yet, the loss to Iona, coming off of a night in which his team scored 110 on George Washington, but barely kept the Colonials under 100 led to murmurs of Keno ball not working at the Big East level. Welcome to Providence, my friend.
We can only judge Keno Davis off of what we've seen to date, but in reality it simply isn't fair to judge his coaching acumen until year three, at the earliest.
Bruce Pearl and John Thompson III, coaches who had immediate success when taking over rebuilding schools, are the exception to the rule, not the norm.
Need proof?
- Jim Calhoun's Big East record in his first three years: 3-13, 4-12, 6-10
- John Thompson's first two seasons at Georgetown: 12-14, 13-13
- Coach K went 17-13, 10-17, 11-17 in his first three years at Duke
- Al Skinner? 15-16, 6-21, 11-19 to kick off his career at BC
- Billy Donovan: 13-17 and 14-15 to start his career at Florida
- Back to back 15-14 seasons kicked off Tom Crean's career at Marquette.
It wasn't long ago, 2004 to be precise, when Providence fans laughed off the coaching ability of Jay Wright. You remember these days. The Friars had just finished polishing off Villanova, in their house, 100-74 and the popular refrain was "he can recruit, but he's a poor game coach."
It was tough to argue in 2004. Wright was in his third year at Villanova, his second season with the killer crop of Foye-Sumpter-Fraser-Ray and he went 7-9 in the Big East in year 1, 15-16 overall with those great freshman in year 2, and when PC pasted them at home he was on his way to a 6-10 conference record.
Five years later and Wright is overseeing a basketball empire and Providence fans are raising questions about a coach who is 7-4 with a roster of 8 players who never played D1 basketball until November.
I can't imagine what life would be like on Smith Hill if Keno ever brought in the Foye/Sumpter crew and was four games under .500 in conference play after two years. How much noise would Keno hear if he went 6-21 and 11-19 in years 2 and 3 as Skinner did at BC?
Are the questions about Keno's defense fair? Probably, but it's also fair to say that the defense will improve once he starts bringing in higher quality athletes. Doc Rivers wasn't clueless defensively when he coached Ricky Davis and Gerald Green and he didn't become the league's best defensive coach once he acquired Kevin Garnett.
The other thing about coaches: they improve. Much like the players they coach, they learn from mistakes, but they have to be given time to make them. The one thing that Keno Davis and his staff have proven over the past year and a half is that they are willing to work.
Will Keno make it here as a coach? Will he consistently bring in the players necessary to complete in the Big East? Will the defense improve over what we've seen to date? It's impossible to say at this point, but if history is any indicator we won't know for another two years.
Call it a hunch, call it the "anyone is better than TW hangover", call it "this guy won 10 Big East games while starting Jeff Xavier and his 30% 3 point percentage, 6'5 grounded center Jon Kale and no bench?" syndrome, but the guess here is he is the right man for the job.
