It's a domino effect process to be sure and speculation runs rampant with it. As BU fans, we went through it last year after Dennis Wolff got canned, and a month of hearing names like Richard Pitino and Tony Jones led us to Pat Chambers being named the BU head coach.
Don't ask me why, but I've always been infatuated with this whole process, naming people who I think would work best for these jobs. Think of it like my inner-AD since I know I'll never get any sort of job like that ever in my life.
Anyhow, I'll go through some of the more prominent head coaching vacancies and name who I think would be the best person for each position. Here goes nothing:
DePaul
May be stating the obvious here, but DePaul basketball's fallen on some hard times. While it was certainly a coup for this program and school to make the move from Conference USA to the Big East, they've been absolutely terrible since they changed conferences, highlighted by the fact that they've only won one regular season conference game in the past two years.
Was all of this because DePaul's simply not ready to be in a conference like the Big East or is it because of the shortcomings of former coach Jerry Wainwright?
This is a question that the DePaul administration is hoping to answer, having just canned Wainwright a few months back. I sit on the optimistic side of this: DePaul's not what I would call a "sleeping giant" (that's a bold claim), but they're certainly a program that should be able to do a hell of a lot better than they are right now.
Most of this comes from their location in Chicago. The Second City, in my opinion, has produced more NBA talent than any other city in this country over the past fifteen years. But where do all these kids go? Duke, Memphis, Louisville, Illinois, Marquette- basically, anywhere but DePaul.
Because of the small sizes of programs like Loyola and Illinois-Chicago and the academic restrictions of a school like Northwestern, DePaul can be considered the main program in Chicago to land these kids. What they need is the right coach, along with a new, on-campus arena, but that's a different matter.
You hear a lot of names floating out there for this job, because the school is supposedly looking for a big name get. I've seen Billy Gillispie, but he was deemed to be a bad fit in Kentucky, so how in the hell would he fit in better in Chicago? You see a lot of mid-major coaches like Brad Brownell (Wright State), Gregg Marshall (Witchita State), and John Groce (Ohio U), but I think they need a bigger name to potentially lure in these recruits.
Seen Chicago guys like Chris Lowery (S. Illinois coach) mentioned, but his success at Southern Illinois has been spotty. Brian Gregory from Dayton's been mentioned, but I don't see Gregory taking that job- having gone to that Dayton game, they get insane support from a great fanbase who largely adore him. Besides, if he buys his time a little more, he can land a more stable job than DePaul. Also seen former UCLA coach and ESPN analyst Steve Lavin brought up, and that's certainly a possibility, but I've got a name in mind: Reggie Theus.
Sure, he didn't do well with the Sacramento Kings, but that was not a good situation for him being so new as a head coach. Besides, we've seen this story so many times- successful college coach can't make it in the NBA. Gonna hold that against him too much? No way, especially since he did such a good job at New Mexico State. The man can recruit, he's still pretty young and charismatic, and he played for the Bulls for a little while.
Big enough name who will deliver the Chicago-area players that this program so desperately needs. If worse comes to worse, he can even sell his soul and start working with Worldwide Wes to get some of these guys.
Houston
Tom Penders may have been able to lead the Cougars on a nice run to the Conference USA Tournament title and an NCAA Tourney berth, but it wasn't enough for him to hold onto his job after years of mediocrity.
Houston's obviously a program in a nice location for recruiting and they've certainly had past success with Phi Slamma Jamma and what not, but they haven't been good for awhile. I mean a long while.
Again, not really a "sleeping giant" sort of situation, but you can clearly win at Houston and these past fifteen years have been more of an indication of underachieving rather than a flaw in this program. This is a school that should be among the top five in Conference USA year in and year out.
For me, Houston's got the obvious candidate here- the aforementioned Billy Gillispie.
Now that UTEP's opened up with Tony Barbee's departure, he's been rumored there too, but I'm not sure he'd want to go back to somewhere like that where he's already coached. Besides, location has to be taken into account- would you rather have your school's recruiting base be in Houston or El Paso?
If his past work at UTEP and Texas A&M isn't enough of an indication, Gillispie's a master of building something out of nothing. Sure, he didn't succeed at Kentucky, but I think at this point we can all acknowledge that he was just a bad fit there. In fact, John Calipari's kind of a rarity- a lot of people aren't great fits in Lexington. Tubby Smith certainly wasn't, but that may have been more due to the fact he was a black man coaching at the program that Adolph Rupp built. Nevermind, I'm going down a road I really shouldn't.
All in all, Gillispie's a Texas guy who can build success from scratch. He's looking for a chance for redemption, and in a league like C-USA where Larry Eustachy, Matt Doherty, and Mike Davis coach, where could a better fit be?
Oregon
One of the Pac-10's most successful programs over the past ten years, the Ducks opted to part ways with long-time coach Ernie Kent after two less-than-stellar seasons.
While a lot of us may not think of Oregon as a sort of basketball mecca, it's a great basketball program that's had a lot of past success, and for the sake of being totally honest, there are two words that make this job stand out: Phil Knight.
The Nike founder/owner is an Oregon native and The Swoosh is based out of Portland. Knight has invested a lot in Oregon athletics, even ponying up the dough for a new arena that Oregon's moving into next year.
Expect this to potentially be the marquee job available this off-season. There's a lot of names mentioned around this job, so I'll just run down the list:
-PJ Carlesimo: hasn't coached college in forever, not really sure that's a chance I'd want to take. Besides, I'm always someone who's been weary of bringing an NBA coach into the college ranks, even if they've been there before.
-Mark Few: he's turned them down before, and overall he seems pretty content at Gonzaga. Who can blame him, really?
-Mike Dunlap: if they can't get the guy I'm going to suggest, Dunlap would be who I'd hire. He was brought in to be an extremely highly paid assistant for Kent and some saw it as a possible replacement should Kent be fired. I don't see a program of Oregon's resources going for him as a first choice, but he's certainly a viable one.
-Steve Alford: he's undoubtedly done good work at both Iowa and New Mexico, but for whatever reason, Alford teams have always had trouble in the NCAA Tournament. Don't know why, but I could certainly see the Oregon faithful getting a little restless after repeatedly getting ousted early in the Big Dance.
-Randy Bennett- St. Mary's has certainly been an elite mid-major program these past few years, but that seems like a pretty big jump.
-Rick Adelman: Would he even consider this?
-Jamie Dixon: A west coast guy, but he's turned down bigger jobs than this to stay at Pitt. He seems to be really happy there and it looks like that's where he wants to spend his coaching career, continuing to make Pitt into a regular Big East power
-Jay Wright: Same thing as Dixon, except he has no ties to the left coast. He's a Pennsylvania guy, married to a former Villanova cheerleader and he's a hero there, coaching in a city with elite basketball talent in a much better conference.
So who do I think should be offered the job? Look no further than someone taking place in the Elite Eight today- Baylor coach Scott Drew.
He's rebuilt that program from failure and horrific tragedy and turned them into what they are today, a Big 12 power who's a game away from the Final Four.
May not be the likes of Wright or Dixon, but you really can't do too much better than a young, successful head coach who truly knows how to build a program.
Seton Hall
The program that Carlesimo helped lead to prominence back in the late eighties is now in the search of looking for a head coach after getting rid of Bobby Gonzalez.
Gonzo was a fiery personality to say the least and he wasn't exactly fired for his inability to lead the team to wins, seeing as the team improved each year he was there, but his temper and some questionable players that he brought in ultimately did him in.
Seton Hall's not in a bad position: they've won in the past, they play in the Big East, and they have a good location for recruiting purposes. The task is now to get a coach who will get them out of mediocrity in the Big East and do it in a classy, semi-respectable way. No Gonzo, Part II here.
New York/New Jersey connections are going to be almost a pre-req for whoever's in the running for this job. Fran McCaffrey would have been an ideal fit here, but he just took the Iowa job earlier today. Chris Mooney, the Richmond coach, was floated out there, but it looks like his deal's going to get restructured there. Besides, has anyone ever seen the Richmond campus before? Would you want to leave that for South Orange, New Jersey?
Dan and Bob Hurley, two local high school coaches, have been rumored, but it's not worth the risk to go with a Gerry Faust-esque hiring of a high school coach. Kevin Willard's a Pitino protege, but I'm not sure he's had the success at Iona to warrant this kind of a promotion.
For me, the perfect fit here's Cornell coach Steve Donahue.
He coaches at a New York school, he's had a great run of success that's about to end (temporarily at least) with the graduation of a talent-laden senior class, and most importantly for Seton Hall, he wins with class and integrity.
St. John's
Putting aside any sort of "Oh, how the mighty have fallen" analogies, St. John's certainly isn't where it was back in the eighties. Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, Ron Artest? To channel Rick Pitino, they're not walking through that door.
And quite frankly, no top players from the Mecca of Basketball (NYC) are walking through the doors of the St. John's campus. The Red Storm are the top program in the New York metro area, but they've fallen far behind the likes of UConn and Syracuse when it comes to getting the Big Apple's top players.
Part of this can certainly be attributed to the fact that St. John's can no longer offer housing stipends that used to entice a lot of local guys to the program, but this is still a program that can compete in the Big East. It's just going to take a lot of work.
Norm Roberts didn't win a whole lot, but he did exactly what he needed to do: he came in and cleaned up a program that was in disrepair. Word is that local AAU coaches complained that Roberts almost made St. John's "too clean", which is something you certainly have to admire in this day and age.
But what St. John's needs now is a man who can win. McCaffery, again, is no longer an option here. The Red Storm are now reportedly in talks with BC coach Al Skinner, but I'm not totally sure I see Skinner leaving The Heights to rebuild a down-trodden program. If he does, that's a great hire, just don't see it happening.
Again, don't see the allure of Willard. Fran Dunphy's been mentioned, but he went from Penn to Temple and has spent the last thirty something years in The City of Brotherly Love. He's a Philly guy, don't see that changing now.
Both Paul Hewitt and Seth Greenberg have already turned the job down, so where do they turn now?
I think the guy here's another Ivy League coach, Harvard's Tommy Amaker.
Amaker's already had success coaching a NY-area school (at Seton Hall) in the Big East no less, and while he flopped at Michigan, his successor, John Beilein, hasn't been doing too well either, so maybe Amaker wasn't entirely to blame for the shortcomings of that program.
He's done an astounding job making Harvard an elite team in the Ivy and he can recruit, even for Harvard, he's luring in top guys. Young, charismatic, and clean when it comes to the NCAA. Seems like a good fit to me.
Wagner
A final New York school looking for a head coach, I'm gonna cut the BS and just give my choice here: none other than former BU coach Dennis Wolff.
Some might argue that the Wolff-man got a raw deal here in the very end and while people have been kicking him while he's down here on campus, the man is a good coach who runs a clean program.
Might as well Wagner, you need a coach, this qualified man needs a job, make it happen.
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