When Rodney took over, the program was in a state of chaos. RICE took us to overtime the day Beard got arrested. We barely beat a bad Stanford team, and only beat OU by 1. Then K-State beat us. It was ugly and most fans felt like the season was lost.
It is easy to dismiss the year as Rodney winning with "Beard's team", but that team could have easily fallen off a cliff and missed the tournament completely. We closed the year winning 7 of our last 8 (and it could have easily been 11 out of 12 with close losses at Baylor and TCU.
We hadn't been past the first weekend in 15 years, and Rodney got us to the Elite 8 (and some bad calls from making the Final Four). We also had two one and done NBA caliber recruits expected to sign. 100 out of 100 Athletic Directors would have given Rodney the job. He went out and earned it.
That said, just about everyone I know expected his tenure to play out exactly as it has. We gave him a shot and with his tourney win last year, he delivered more than Shaka did in his six years with the program. But he is never going to be an elite coach. We will grind and struggle to make the tournament every year and occasionally put together a run. But we aren't a program that will be feared. We aren't ever going to be a top 5 team consistently. So for that, he has to go. The days of settling for mediocrity are over.