bobinator said:
Well it was probably their hire of Haith that helped lead to the mess that Kim Anderson inherited.
But worst coaching hire of the decade? I'll have to think on that. The BCG era at Texas Tech wasn't exactly lights out.
As you said, Anderson walked into a situation that was caused by Haith -- they wound up with Kim Anderson because no one else really wanted the job, so hard to call that one a bad hire.
BCG took a 13 win Tech team and won 8 games... Certainly not an improvement, but it's not as if they took a huge step back. You could make a stronger case that Kentucky hiring BCG had worse results than TTech.
A bit outside the 10 year mark, but Norman Roberts (and then his successor Steve Lavin) probably aren't bad choices for worst hires at major conference basketball schools. You can say Mike Jarvis only kept his head above water because of the previous coach's recruits, but St. Johns went from a perennial 20+ win team to an afterthought in the Big East under Roberts.