2015 College basketball coaching carousel thread

Money is an issue, but Mississippi State has always been a program with some underrated potential. They were usually an SEC contender under Rick Stansbury, and there's some good tradition there. It's not like the SEC is a tremendous basketball conference, either. It's typically Kentucky, Florida, and everybody else. If he can convince some of the top in-state players to come to Starkville (Kentucky's Devin Booker is from Mississippi, and there's another guy from Jackson named Malik Newman who is one of the top two or three recruits in the country, so there is top talent in the state) he could easily position Mississippi State as a solid No. 2 or No. 3 team in a power conference. That's almost always good enough to get to the tournament.

 

Mississippi State is an Adidas school and Howland is an Adidas guy. Might be as simple as that.

Speaking of Newman, he's still uncommitted. Rumor has it his dad, former MSU player Horatio Webster, is angling for a job on Howland's staff.

 

The coach at Ohio U will take over in Madison when Bo finally walks away. I imagine he left NDSU just to be a step closer to B1G play while in the MAC. While he's trying to recruits kids to play in Athens now, he is also building recruiting contacts in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan for when Bucky calls.

For a long time, there was talk Tony Bennett would return. We're on 15 years since his father was head coach at Wisconsin. If Bo steps away in 2010, I could see it but not now.

 

Still looks pretty spry? I guess, but he started aging in dog years this year. There was one game I saw where they cut from a wins graphic showing Kentucky-era Pitino to the real thing, and I had an actual physical reaction.

 

Sounds like Herb Sendek may be on his way out in Tempe.

Herb Sendek of Arizona State Sun Devils, athletic director Ray Anderson to meet - ESPN

He'd be a good fit for DePaul. I'm sure he'll land somewhere.

 

I'd be really curious if Bennett would go back to Wisconsin after Bo retires, which could be anytime between now and the next 5-8 years.

It's a better job (not by that much) but not only would he have to work in Bo's shadow, but his father's as well. That's a lot to ask. Granted, it's not like there's Kentucky-like pressure there, but he has a pretty good gig going at Virginia.

 

Not only does he have a good gig going at Virginia, but he's also got that program humming with both K's and Roy's retirements in sight, let alone Pitino and Boeheim. They could become the class of the ACC for a long time.

 

Not sure I'd go that far, but I think Bennett can have Virginia very competitive on a yearly basis. If I were him, I would not leave Virginia. When you have a program that struggled like that one did (two NCAA appearances in 11 years) and now that they're good, they're going to appreciate him. That might not be the case elsewhere.

 

I'm not qualified to speak on much, but I can assure you that Tony Bennett is a godlike figure at UVA. If they instituted a state tax solely and explicitly for the purpose of paying people to scatter flower petals at his feet as he walks around, even the most conservative UVA grads would pull out their wallets without hesitation.

 

Which is why you don't leave that job. Not for Indiana, not for Wisconsin, not for Kentucky...

 

And the basketball bigwigs among the UVA donors have very deep pockets and a demonstrated willingness to open their wallets. That's not to say a place like Texas couldn't money-whip him, but it would take a truly astronomical figure for UVA to be outbid. Paul Tudor Jones will see to that. He didn't pony up to get his dad's name on UVA's arena to have a shitty product inside.

The inverse of that is why UVA football is so shitty. They haven't had a massively rich champion in the donor base since Carl Smith died.

 

Sendek fired.