Gophers_4life, I know you're not going to change your mind on this, but I think it's a mistake to look at college athletics as a fixed outcome formula. The most talented team is not guaranteed to win a natty. Sure, they will win more often than they'll lose, but for team success, the best you can do it get the best talent you're able, train the talent to perform at the highest level, do it year after year and hope to break through some year.
Yes, the 2018 team was probably one of the 2 best teams in the country, but they got tripped up by who knows what - a bad matchup? the pressure to make the final 4 at home? an off-night? a bad call? These are all of the uncertain and human factors that make sports so entertaining.
Of course you're correct -- within any single year. Of course. This holds true no matter what, no matter how great a coach, system, and/or program are -- within any single year. That's where randomness/luck plays a part.
Once you have several years strung together, that randomness averages out. The bad bounce or call you missed last year, you got the next year, etc.
We saw 11 seasons of Hugh, two of which I freely dismiss (2014 outlier and 2020-21 covid). That's still 9 seasons. Doing it his way ... is what it is. It hit its ceiling.
And that ceiling wasn't good enough. Just plain and simple.
No fan of college volleyball can look at Wisconsin has done, and claim to be a Gophers volleyball fan and say "well, what Hugh did here is good enough, it was still plenty good, oh gosh ya know". Not good enough.
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