[2006alum]

Every time I raise issues with questionable coaching on the women's side over the past two years, for example, you have responded that Tara is entitled to some "slack" because of her PAST record of success over her entire career.

I can't speak for Garvin, but I feel like the question is what flows from an observation that there have been some questionable coaching decisions on the women's team. If it's simply to say hey, this is a problem we need to correct, then I don't think anyone on this board disagrees. Even those of us who followed the women's team closely and think highly of Tara (a group which includes myself) have criticized coaching decisions for the women's team and picked apart various decisions they've made. For example, for the life of me, I just don't see how Kailee Johnson merits starts over Kaylee Johnson, no matter how many intangibles her game has. At a certain point, we need people who can be scoring threats under the basket. I don't understand why we don't regularly use McPhee and Smith, because they often follow a great game with extremely minimal playing time. Etc.

But I think some questionable decisions about how to pick a starting five lineup when ALL of your team's players have notable weaknesses and/or are HIGHLY streaky is also understandable. Kailee is a terrific defender. Kaylee doesn't like to play the four as much, so we can't use her as often when Bird is playing. McPhee is turnover prone. Smith is foul prone. Etc. So while I think we are within our rights to question some of Tara's choices, I don't think that adds up to "fire Tara." And I've not seen anyone on this board say she's unimpeachable to criticism. (After all, what would we talk about?!) I just don't think a reasonable case can be made that Tara is doing as bad or worse than Dawkins, based on objective, subjective, or other factors, even just over these last two seasons. And when you throw in Tara's track record, yes, she does deserve a lot more benefit of the doubt than Dawkins does. If you disagree with that, then we can just agree to disagree.

[2006alum]

Every time I raise issues with questionable coaching on the women's side over the past two years, for example, you have responded that Tara is entitled to some "slack" because of her PAST record of success over her entire career.

I can't speak for Garvin, but I feel like the question is what flows from an observation that there have been some questionable coaching decisions on the women's team. If it's simply to say hey, this is a problem we need to correct, then I don't think anyone on this board disagrees. Even those of us who followed the women's team closely and think highly of Tara (a group which includes myself) have criticized coaching decisions for the women's team and picked apart various decisions they've made. For example, for the life of me, I just don't see how Kailee Johnson merits starts over Kaylee Johnson, no matter how many intangibles her game has. At a certain point, we need people who can be scoring threats under the basket. I don't understand why we don't regularly use McPhee and Smith, because they often follow a great game with extremely minimal playing time. Etc.

But I think some questionable decisions about how to pick a starting five lineup when ALL of your team's players have notable weaknesses and/or are HIGHLY streaky is also understandable. Kailee is a terrific defender. Kaylee doesn't like to play the four as much, so we can't use her as often when Bird is playing. McPhee is turnover prone. Smith is foul prone. Etc. So while I think we are within our rights to question some of Tara's choices, I don't think that adds up to "fire Tara." And I've not seen anyone on this board say she's unimpeachable to criticism. (After all, what would we talk about?!) I just don't think a reasonable case can be made that Tara is doing as bad or worse than Dawkins, based on objective, subjective, or other factors, even just over these last two seasons. And when you throw in Tara's track record, yes, she does deserve a lot more benefit of the doubt than Dawkins does. If you disagree with that, then we can just agree to disagree.