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If Larry Brown thrives at SMU, he’d be the outlier. By far.

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Mike Miller

SMU finalized its deal to bring Larry Brown back to the college coaching ranks. But what can we expect from the move?

Not a whole lot.

The Mustangs were just 13-19 last season – with two of those wins coming against non-D-I teams – and lose their best player in wing Robert Nyakundi. He, along with departed senior Rodney Clinkscales, were the only two players who boasted an above-average offensive efficiency rating last season.

SMU’s young. It started a freshman and two sophomores last season, not to mention giving solid playing time to three other freshmen. Even if all those freshmen have better-than-average jumps in their sophomore seasons, it’ll make SMU an average Conference USA team.

That means .500. At best. And that’s just next year.

This post provides general evidence that there shouldn’t be any reason to expect anything except a sub-par performance from Brown, simply because anything else would be defying what other coaches his age (71) did.

But that’s not why SMU hired Brown, is it? The hiring provided a magnificent bit of publicity without much downside. There’s no disputing Brown’s coaching credentials. One year of Brown helping to start a semblance of a hoops program at SMU would be nice. Two would be huge.

Anything beyond that? A miracle.

You also can follow me on Twitter @MikeMillerNBC.