I am seeing a lot of folks saying he is a good fit, but I am not getting a warm and fuzzy. I don't know why, but I don't have a good gut feeling about this guy. I usually try to look at positives, too. Someone convince me otherwise.
Copied from my comments elsewhere:
Once we realize that Tyndall is in precisely the tier of coaches from which we were always going to be hiring, we can assess him based on his merits— which are better than Cuonzo’s, better than Buzz’s, and better than Wade Houston’s by a wide margin. They are somewhere between O’Neill and Pearl. It’s easy to look at his USM work and be underwhelmed. I liked what White did in his three years at LT better than what Tyndall did in his two at USM, because USM had already seen some success.
But Tyndall did really good work at Morehead State. The team he took over was abysmal— 4 wins the prior year and in the bottom 15 (out of 334) in the nation in efficiency. By year 3 they won 20 games and made the NCAA tournament, and at the time he left they had been top 100 in efficiency 2 of the last 3 years.
And was the USM job following Eustachy really that easy? Not when you look at roster turnover. Tyndall’s first team had to replace 6 of its top 7 scorers and returned only 3 guys that played in more than four games in Eustachy’s last season. Tyndall then led those teams to 56 wins in 2 years. Pretty impressive, actually, even if he didn’t get them to the tourney.
And finally, his personality does seem a better fit— more like Bruce’s and Butch’s than Cuonzo’s. I won’t say i’m excited by the hire, but it’s got a better chance of success than some may imagine.