[Adam]

He's got a losing record in the conference over his career, even though the last few years have been marginally successful during the conference season. Typically, they'd have a really good non-conference season, enter the conference ranked in the top 15, and finish the conference at 6-10 or 7-9, needing a flourish in the conference tourney to get an NCAA bid. I believe he was about 5 or 6 years in before he got an at-large bid.

This year was the opposite. A 9-7 conference record couldn't make up for a horrible non-conference showing, and they didn't even get an NIT bid. Partly, I think, because his teams have underperformed in the post-season tournaments once they get beyond the Big Ten tournament.

He had serious retention problems early, and they continue to a lesser degree. And the whole Pierre Pierce fiasco backfired in his face, even though he did (in my opinion) the right thing by his player.

It was just a lot of little things that added up over 8 years.