My first reaction when his name was brought up was this:
And I know that I'm not alone. On the surface it looks like a terrible idea. Below the surface, it still might. His overall record does not look great - 129-155 is thoroughly unimpressive. But I did want to share some stuff that I saw that could soften the blow if this indeed the hand that we are dealt. Note that I'm not advocating for his hire, just trying to stir up a little conversation. Let's look at where he's been and his record may be the way that it is.
Army, his first stop as the main man, is one of five original D1 teams to have never made the NCAA tournament. Ever. It also should be noted that things can't be judged the same way with the military academies for the primary reason that recruiting simply doesn't work the same way as it does for other schools. In addition, no Army coach has a career record over .500 since Coach K was there in the early/mid 80s. It is a difficult place to win basketball games.
His time at Loyola was during a long stretch following Prosser's brief tenure where no one could get the job done in terms of having a winning season, let alone making the NCAA tournament.
Even their current coach, who looks to have some decent things working having made the NCAAs this year, was 95-113 at the school until this season happened. Loyola's situation from the standpoint of sustaining success has been about as bad as Army's. With the exception of Prosser's season, no coach has posted a career record better than .500 since the end of Dicovitsky's tenure in 1981. Patsos may be on the way there, but it hasn't happened yet.
Finally, there is the matter of his 61-31 record at Wake Forest. On the surface, it is easy to assume that this was entirely on the coattails of Skip Prosser. However, what I didn't realize is that this record followed two seasons by Prosser where the team was a combined 32-33 - including an 8-24 conference record (Gaudio was 27-21 in conference). Gaudio's three seasons at Wake Forest were good for the best career win percentage at Wake since the 1920s.
Of course, there are concerns there about his inability to win in the conference tournament. There are many things to be concerned with when talking about the potential of Dino Gaudio as the next coach of the Dukes. While there are other options that I like far more, seeing some of this makes me hate the idea a little less.
