If we would've played uptempo with guys like McIntosh, Petersen, Haluska, Dunson, Brock Jacobson, Garrett (as a freshman), Boozer (as an underclassman) etc..we would've gotten run out of the gym and lost a lot of games much worse than we actually did...thank goodness we slowed it down with those teams.
I agree it's more exciting to watch uptempo basketball, and am thankful things turned out like they did with McDermott leaving and Fred coming in, but there is no "right" or "wrong" style of play. Teams can win by slowing it down and running set plays, or by playing 40 minutes of hell...it's how you recruit and how you execute. McDermott's last team is really the only team he had that really underachieved. His problem was that he had WAY too many recruiting misses, and evidently struggled relating to a lot of players.