2019 College Basketball Coaching Carousel

Where's the AAC TV contract? Seriously? I caught a UCONN game on a Sunday afternoon on ESPN in late February and I think its the first time I'd seen AAC regular season basketball on TV. It's basically the old C-USA but with UCONN and Temple. UCONN fans have to be going through shellshock, from battling Villanova and Georgetown in Madison square Garden every March to playing Tulsa in Memphis. Meanwhile, I think UCF's entire athletic department is the real deal and should probably be considered for the ACC at some point, but won't because of politics and other factors. I can't see them wanting to add another fulltime member that isn't Notre Dame and I also don't see any scenario where Miami and FSU would be okay with it.

 

Cronin has two options:

The first is stay in his hometown where his wife and daughter live. Even though he is the 49th highest paid coach he makes $2,000,000+ a year. The program is in good shape..

Or he could jump somewhere like Virginia Tech. At Tech he would play Virginia, North Carolina and Duke, Syracuse and Louisville every year. Tech has also historically been a basketball nonentity. But Cronin would probably make $3,000,000 ayear.

History has shown that basketball coaches have tender egos because they take items like sub par pay packages very personally. So I can see him jumping.

 

In what I assume is a bit of a surprise, Belmont's Rick Byrd (son of the legendary KNS columnist, of course) is retiring.

 

On the women's side, UNC has placed longtime coach Syliva Hatchell and her three assistants on paid leave while the program is under review.

UNC places women's basketball coach Hatchell, staff on leave during review of program

 

I’d say the biggest hurdle for UCF is academic reputation. But Louisville.

 

You are UCLA. You've been looking for a coach for three months. And you are still swinging and missing on coaches. Incredible. It's moves like this is why they ended up with Alford in the first place. And why no big name coach wants anything to do with Guererro.
UCLA getting used for leverage. John Wooden weeps.
How about next time you just hire some talented mid-major coach bill him as "the next Brad Stevens" and be done with it?

 

Candy hiring Jerry Stackhouse? WTF?

(By the way, Siri changed the spelling of Vandy to Candy. Naturally I am OK with that)

 

1) If Cincinnati elects to lose a winning basketball coach to Virginia Tech, it needs to shut down its program or petition to join the Missouri Valley. That shouldn't happen. You're talking about a storied program that just rebuilt its arena and claims one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, Oscar Robertson, as its own. Va Tech is, historically speaking, a basketball wasteland. They've done three renovations or additions of Enter Sandman Lunchpail Stadium in relatively recent years, but they haven't touched the basketball arena. Nobody cares. They lucked into Buzz. Maybe they'll get the same sort of thing with Cronin, but there is a pattern to pay attention to. They can attract refugees who are desperate to leave, but they won't be able to retain them. If Cronin were to land there, he'd be essentially lobbying for the next Big Ten job to come open.
2) Jerry Stackhouse at Vanderbilt? The new AD is from the G League, obviously a bastion of academic rigor and inquiry, and so is Stackhouse, whose other coaching experience came with an AAU program. This, apparently, is enough to justify the hire. The obvious thing here is that UNC hands out jobs to any former player trying to get into coaching. Assistant to the assistant video coordinator, etc. And he never held one of those gigs. Yet he's going to get his first head coaching job in a major conference with zero previous experience in recruiting and only vicarious and brief ties to Vanderbilt. Maybe it will work. The one certainty is that he'll get more of a chance than Bryce Drew got.
3) UCLA's offer of $8 million a year to Calipari did not constitute a serious attempt at luring a man who makes $9.2 million to live in Lexington, Ky. From salary.com:
The cost of living in Beverly Hills, CA is 66.0%higher than in in Lexington, KY. Therefore, you would have to earn a salary of $15,269,498 to maintain your current standard of living.
Rather, it was a marker to others designed to suggest that UCLA will, in fact, open up the checkbook.
No matter how badly Adam Zagoria wants it happen, Tony Bennett is not going to Westwood.

 

Sounds like the law firm is charged with finding reasons to whack her for cause. I don't know if they have to sign anybody this spring, but this would appear to put any such efforts on ice.

 

If UCLA was willing to throw an offer at Calipari, obviously ethical concerns are not too high on their worry list.

Pitino?

Donovan? He's doing all right at OKC but he certainly doesn't seem to be building a contender; one 30-52 season and he's out on his ass.

 

Good points about Cincinnati. I think Cincinnati needs to join the MAC (lower travel costs than the Missouri Valley). The school averages 8,000 a game for basketball and 28,000 for football. They already pay the basketball coach two million dollars a year and that is not enough. They are trying to be a Power Five school without a Power Five television contract. IF many PAc 12 schools are struggling because of low revenues how is Cincinnati going to compete nationally?