I am not ready to jump off a cliff but this is just not realistic either. It seems that on this board it is two extremes, either everything is disaster or everything is sunny. The truth lies somewhere in between.
To your points:
1. We see some things from the coach that would appear to be ok and we have seen some stuff that should cause some questions. I do not think that anyone can definitively say he is ok at this point and they cannot say he is a bust. Why? Because each can make a case based on things we have seen on the court. I would say that the jury is still out but Miller has a definite hole to get out of that has been dug to this point. I think that getting next year's team to the NCAA tournament is going to be a tough task based on what we know so far. We are one big question mark from top to bottom of the roster on just about everything from health to development over the summer. Our players whom we think we know what to expect from them are streaky by nature. So our only real predictable right now is unpredictability.
2. Sometimes you get a team's number in a season because of match ups. Beating MSU twice is nice but it ended up being as relevant as beating Kansas in Crean's last year. Playing Purdue close at Assembly Hall being counted as some kind of win in year 2 is laughable. That is the type of shot that should get swatted into the rafters and you feeling humiliated for even attempting it.
3. The facilities are just now getting up to par with what our competitors have had for over a decade. We are just now starting to catch up to many of them while they are building new things. You can thank the BTN for coming along and saving the incompetent people who were running this University from the late 80's through the 2000's. The BTN windfall saved their asses because there is 30 years of neglect finally being moderately addressed now. So good that we are finally getting competitive in that regard again but bad that playing catch up still has us behind.
4. There is absolutely momentum. Success breeds success and failure breeds failure. This is particularly true of a new coaching staff. That 12 game losing streak went a long way towards souring a top recruit from our school. It has soured the fanbase and recruiting is taking a bit of a hit right now. We have an 11 man roster because we missed out on every single worthwhile guy we were after to fill those spots in the Spring. Now credit to Miller for not pulling a Crean and grabbing some guy who does not belong on a Big Ten roster out of panic, but having an 11 man roster was not the plan going into the Spring, it is the result of missing on targets. We go into next year with an 11 man roster. 1 of those 11 has never played a minute and still has not been given the all clear health wise. Another of that roster has been injured each of the 3 years he has been here. Another 2 missed significant time last year due to injuries. One of the team leaders got a 3 game suspension for "violating team rules". Momentum is building on hype for new coaches and success for all others. Miller has neither right now. You are kidding yourself if you do not think that the past 2 years have hurt his ability to build a winning program. He is at a point where he is going to have to take a shortened, injury prone roster, that failed to make the tournament last year, that had now lost its 2 most impactful players, and basically make them a tournament team this year or else the negative nancies are going to grow exponentially.
We have a dumbed-down schedule this year IMO, I think it is possible to make the tournament but there is no way in hell I would be confident saying we will make it. I would not lay money either way but right now if I had to bet, I would bet more on the side of missing. We are currently picked to finish 8th in the Big Ten next year in a conference that appears weaker than this year. If that is not a loss of momentum from this time last year where we had Romeo coming and people were on the hype train, I do not know what is. Look at the IU talk right now on this site and similar sister sites. There is no buzz around the program at all. There is no buzz in the media. Miller has absolutely lost momentum. He can change that this year, but I think he is playing with a bad hand. If he makes the tournament this year, that is a big accomplishment based on the way things look to me right now.
