[SkiBum80]

I wonder, who on this message board, if given complete coaching responsibilities for Stanford women’s basketball, would do better than Kate Paye (and, if so, what are you doing on this message board, rather than out there coaching)?

Side note here.  I agree with your sentiment; we shouldn't assume we have enough knowledge to judge KP's process -- only her results, and even those might need to be contextualized....

Absolutely agree the assessment should be contextualized.
Basically, what do you achieve with what you've been given?
(With the side bar that part of the achievement includes recruiting, helping the Coach give themselves more, though the recruiting is much more complicated than simply the Head Coach's effort and ability)
On this basis, I think Coach Cignetti is the current King of Contextualized Achievement.
At Stanford, I think Coach Reich did a pretty good job getting us to 4 wins, with arguably a not-significantly-better roster from prior year.
Coach Smith last year set a good example of doing more with less, taking us to first post season play in years. 
Yes, with help, he successfully got Maxime back for a final year, no small feat. 
But he also coached Maxime to his best college year ever, with strategy emphasizing Maxime on defense and playing to team strengths.
For both Coach Smith and Coach Paye I think the assessment for this season is still pending.
Based on games so far, I'm leaning towards Coach Smith maybe ends up pretty good, while Coach Paye not so much. 
For Coach Smith, on the upside, seeing how much he is getting out of highly overlooked Okorie, and how many other Coaches would have drawn this out?  On the downside, the ND game is a recent concern.
For Coach Paye, yes some good wins, like Oregon. But FGCU was already a bad loss. And NCState a beatdown.
At this point of season only my preliminary guesses, as still the heart of season yet to go and I'm open to revision.

[SkiBum80]

I wonder, who on this message board, if given complete coaching responsibilities for Stanford women’s basketball, would do better than Kate Paye (and, if so, what are you doing on this message board, rather than out there coaching)?

Side note here.  I agree with your sentiment; we shouldn't assume we have enough knowledge to judge KP's process -- only her results, and even those might need to be contextualized....

Absolutely agree the assessment should be contextualized.
Basically, what do you achieve with what you've been given?
(With the side bar that part of the achievement includes recruiting, helping the Coach give themselves more, though the recruiting is much more complicated than simply the Head Coach's effort and ability)
On this basis, I think Coach Cignetti is the current King of Contextualized Achievement.
At Stanford, I think Coach Reich did a pretty good job getting us to 4 wins, with arguably a not-significantly-better roster from prior year.
Coach Smith last year set a good example of doing more with less, taking us to first post season play in years. 
Yes, with help, he successfully got Maxime back for a final year, no small feat. 
But he also coached Maxime to his best college year ever, with strategy emphasizing Maxime on defense and playing to team strengths.
For both Coach Smith and Coach Paye I think the assessment for this season is still pending.
Based on games so far, I'm leaning towards Coach Smith maybe ends up pretty good, while Coach Paye not so much. 
For Coach Smith, on the upside, seeing how much he is getting out of highly overlooked Okorie, and how many other Coaches would have drawn this out?  On the downside, the ND game is a recent concern.
For Coach Paye, yes some good wins, like Oregon. But FGCU was already a bad loss. And NCState a beatdown.
At this point of season only my preliminary guesses, as still the heart of season yet to go and I'm open to revision.