bierce

How lucky for Josh Eilert to get his second interim head coaching tag in 20 months.

Kind of saw this one coming. I felt that the Utah-UCF game was going to be an elimination game for head coaches. UCF might wait another year until it gets full Big 12 money to move on from Dawkins. Smith was the first of three successive Utah State coaches who moved on to new jobs in a three year period. He was followed by Odom, who went to VCU, and Sprinkle, who went to Washington. Kind of amazing that Utah State is on the bubble this year when it it on its fourth coach in 5 years. I'm going to hate it if Utah grabs an up and coming coach and takes over the world.

Top mid-major teams are VCU, UNM, UC San Diego, Drake, McNeese. But UNM is in a much stronger conference than the others. I've mentioned Richard Pitino at UNM several times. Ben McCollum at Drake has been discussed at length. Eric Olen at UC San Diego seems brilliant and on the rise. Ryan Odom at VCU was coaching UMBC when it beat #1 seed UVa in the first round in 2018. Wade is a known commodity willing to make strong-ass offers, but his willingness to give authority the finger is the thing that I think rankles our administration the most. Tyler introduced the idea of long-time UConn assistant and offensive guru Luke Murray, but he's not a hc of a mid-major. But I think it is a mistake to only look at a guy because he took mid-major on a tournament run. Dan Hurley and Nate Oats never got out of the second round before being hired at UConn and Alabama. By comparison, Shaka Smart and Porter Moser made Final Fours and Archie Miller and Shaheen Holloway made Elite Eights before landing P5 jobs.

That's why the quad system was invented--to create a measuring stick by which the committee could excuse itself for keeping the Drakes, McNeeses, and UC San Diegos out if they lose in their conference tournaments. Right 2024 Indiana State? Right, 2023 North Texas? But don't forget the 32 autobids will almost assuredly contain 6 or 7 of the top 36 teams, so you are looking at something more like the top 40-42 teams scrambling for at large bids. Even with that, Texas is now in a play-in game on a lot of brackets right now, and in a few cases Texas is skipped altogether.

Interesting thing happening in the matrix right now. Texas seems to be clinging to an 11 seed and relegated to a play-in game, but a lot of brackets are starting to put VCU, Drake, and UC San Diego on the 11 line and dropping the last at-large teams to the 12 line.

Apparently IU's ideal coaching hire is a calmer fanbase.

Monday's games of interest are UNC @ Florida State and Nebraska hosting Michigan. Cronin had to wait 5 days, but he just got his 500th win.

Indiana got a big win over Purdue. Probably not enough to get it back in the tournament, but it should get it on Next Four out lists. Xavier held on against a strong Seton Hall second half rally. Will start supplanting Wake on many brackets. tOSU about to lose @ UCLA unless fans make it too hard for UCLA to make ft.

If Terry gets fired mid-season, then one of his assistants takes over or the whole staff is replaced and Tre Johnson quits to spend the rest of the spring in private workouts with NBA guys, and everyone else quits, and we wind up playing cheerleaders and guys who show up to walk-on tryouts. Frank Haith is #2. You want Frank Haith coaching? Just put to rest the idea that we're changing coaches before the season is over. But I have little doubt about the word probably already being out to coaches in search of a promotion that Austin will be hiring. Just think of all the stuff we're hearing about Wade right now.

Well, not here, because here didn't exist then, but you know what I mean.

Becky Hammon's name was kicked around here when we were talking about a replacement for Smart before it was obvious Beard would come here.

Women's coaches never move into the men's game at this level. They don't have the recruiting contacts, and they know it.

That's not entirely true or the whole story, even if 1999 was a typo and you meant 1989. UConn had a lot of good teams in the 50s and early 60s, but it was stuck in the soon to be defunct Yankee Conference with a lot of schools that had small athletic departments and no football program to grow departments in the 70s, so it went backward for several years before it finally got into the newly formed Big East which had quite a few programs already at a high level, was beaten up there for a while, then finally hired Calhoun.

And they canned Michael White because he didn't keep the program at Donovan's level, but instead of giving up on the idea of young coaches from mid-majors, they went back to that well a third time for Todd Golden. I still say Murray, McCollum, Wade, or Pitino is the way to go here. Hey, maybe even Eric Olen of UC San Diego. Not happening, I know.

I don't think it was just the felony arrest that caused Beard to be fired. I can't prove it, but there were rumors about Trew and his relationship with Trew being a problem in Lubbock. I suspect he was hired with the understanding that he needed to keep everything under control in his life, whether by letting her go or otherwise keeping everything under control. Things got out of control. You don't pay a guy $5M a year to bring his problems to the program.

I think he's staying put at a school that totally had his back when Title IX investigations were pending against him and a staff member.

I've gotten a few good answers to this question, but I'll give you my list UConn, Alabama, Arizona, Duke, ISU, and Florida hiring: Hurley, Oats, Lloyd, Scheyer, Otzelberger, and Golden I don't think it is too early to put Scheyer on the list. He had to work with a rebuilt roster in year one at Duke, and this year's team starts three freshman, a transfer, and a junior who never played for Shuh. Yes, he inherited a recruiting network, but he was a large part of that network for years. May might make the list soon, but I think it is too soon to make the call on him. None of these guys had any P5 head coaching experience at the time UConn, Alabama, Arizona, Duke, ISU,and Florida (and Michigan) hired them. Tommy Lloyd was the oldest of the bunch at 46. There have been other good hires like Cronin and Buzz, but I don't think they are quite the success the guys on my list are proving to be. Some mid-major hires flopped. Smart changed his identity and was snake-bit here but is doing well at Marquette now. Prohm was a disaster at ISU. Holtmann went the wrong way in year 5. Moser is on the verge of his 4th straight year without a tournament appearance. I don't have any input with CDC. I'm just a guy who watches a ton of basketball. But I think the lesson here is that great coaches are there at the lower level. A smart AD will find one and get him full support. I'll support the team no matter who we hire (short of Dave Bliss), but I will always think we should go with a young guy who is brilliant at strategies and tactics.

I have a question for the board. Which P5 programs made the best hires in the last 7-8 years?

Actually, I think you will find Jordan is of the opinion Terry is done here but never received the full support of the fans, administration, or bmds. He's not wrong. Terry is not a world beater D1 head coach. Terry did not have the full backing that another coach would have received. Both are true statements, and our program has suffered because BOTH are true statements.

Sunday's bubble games: Xavier @ Seton Hall. Seton Hall is awful. Xavier has a week off before hosting Creighton. That won't be a q1 game for Xavier, which is only 1-9 in q1 games, but it would be a very good q2 win. tOSU @ UCLA Would definitely be a q1 win for tOSU, but tOSU's problem isn't lack of q1 wins (it has 5), but the presence of q4 losses (4 so far).

You got it. It's pretty much a recap of comments I have made over the last couple of weeks. Despite our experience with Smart crapping out (in large part because he redefined himself the moment he got here), I'm still of the opinion we would be better off hiring a guy who can define his career here. I'd look at Murray, McCollum, and Pitino first before going an expensive but "safe" option of a guy who hasn't played above seed in the tournament for 12-15 years.

BYU just got that signature win by beating Arizona in Tucson. Houston will run away with the Big 12 regular season title.

I'm not at all worried about funding a buyout for Terry. I'm worried about getting the right new guy.

I don't see the rationale behind not hiring Wade but hiring a guy 13 years older who has the same federal investigation about his doings a few years back. I don't see the rationale behind hiring a guy who probably already makes close to $5M a year when you can get someone a lot younger and a lot hungrier for 1/2 to 2/3 that amount and use the savings to fund the NIL package. I don't think Miller is as good as an architect of offense as Murray, Wade, or even Pitino. I don't see the rationale spending a ton of money to hire a guy who is 10 years removed from his period of great success, when it was probably fueled by playing outside the rules. Now everyone can do what he was doing, so what advantage does he have? I grant Gerry's point about Miller getting a lot of international recruits, but I don't give him a pass for not making the tournament last year without Freemantle and maybe not making this year with Freemantle. Miller made the second weekend 5 times in 7 years. That is a major accomplishment. It also happened ten years ago. Was Barnes as desirable in 2016 as he was in 2008?

Sounds about right, I guess. 7.2 x 3/5 = 4.32.