I also find it interesting to compare the basketball and football programs right now.
It seems to me like both coaches have largely underwhelming results that are being somewhat overlooked by one really exciting game - basketball beating Wisconsin on No Sit Saturday and the football team beating Michigan State last year. Those were both really good wins but they seem to be somewhat obscuring the far bigger picture of relatively poor performances in many other games. If we hadn't found a way to win those individual games, I think most people's outlook would be significantly different. Which means that too much importance is being placed on one game.
For Riley, there is a lot of "he needs more time to get his players and (hopefully) upgrade talent." And that is true to a large extent. But we've been hearing the same thing about Miles. And he's now in year five. There is still a lot of "this is a young (basketball) team - we need to let these sophomores develop and see where we are." But these ARE ALL Miles' players. The reason we're having to rely on Sophomores at this point is because he was a failure at recruiting for about three years. And this despite all the talk - all along - about how much better recruiting was going.
If Miles' is given two more years for these Sophomores to become Seniors, that will be seven years. So I think the "he needs more time" argument is not really holding water. And that makes me wonder about the "more time" argument on the other side.