2010 College hoop coaching carousel thread

I'll go with four on the Jacobsen over-under. But he'd better study the situations before simply jumping for the cash.
See Lickliter, Todd.

 

If nothing else, Iowa probably DIDN'T want this to happen for UNI.

Now there will be a groundswell of support for Jacobson and I think the Iowa AD really wants to avoid the "mid major coach who rides out a senior-laden team with good shooters" syndrome. See "Alford, 1999" and "Lickliter, 2007".

Before this, I think Iowa was going to target a top assistant with an elite program/former HC who may have some baggage.

However, there is a difference here between Jacobson and Alford/Lickliter. Both Missouri State (okay, SW Missouri) and Butler made plenty of NCAA tourney appearances - and even won a few games - before Alford and Lickliter were the head coaches. Jacobson has, clearly, taken it up a notch at Northern Iowa.

Yet with an Iowa AD desparate to keep his job, I wonder if the pressure to get Jacobson will deter his original plan. Also, do not count out UNI here - I imagine some of their wealthy alums may help put together a nice package to keep Jacobson. Not enough to compete with a BCS school and $1.5 million a year but, if you get bumped up to 400 or 500k in Cedar Falls, why leave for a grease fire like Iowa? Especially as he seems to like UNI.

After beating Kansas, Jacobson could probably stay at UNI as long as wants - assuming they can make the NCAA every three years.

Yes, strike while the interest is there, but, for many of these vacancies, there is a reason the same jobs, like Iowa, were also open 3 or 4 years ago.

 

Zag, the McDermott hiring at ISU and Lickliter at Iowa are the reasons why. Fans do not want their ADs hiring another mid-major coach who is the "hot commodity" in the market. Both guys failed in the eyes of fans here. They want a big name, but there isn't any out here.
Arm, if Barta hires or even consider Grubbell's coach, those Hawkeyes fans will storm the Pentacrest and hang Barta.

There is too much backlash, whether it's worth it or not, against another mid-major hire.

 

Everybody thinks his school will hit the home run with a hire, but the truth is big-name hires (of coaches already in major programs) are not all that abundant. The two most recent NCAA championship coaches are exceptions. Roy Williams and Bill Self had built BCS-school programs to prominence before taking the current gig. But before them? Let's look. Here's the list of title-winning coaches and the jobs they held the season before taking the championship gig:

The * represents another big-name hire and the exception to my rule:
2007 and 2006: Florida; Billy Donovan (Marshall)
2004 and 1999: UConn, Jim Calhoun (Northeastern)
2003: Syracuse, Jim Boeheim (Syracuse assistant, I think)
2002: Gary Williams, Maryland (Ohio State) *
2001, 1992 and 1991: Duke, Mike Krzyzewski (Army)
2000: Michigan State; Tom Izzo, (Michigan State asst)
1998: Kentucky; Tubby Smith, (Georgia) *
1997: Arizona; Lute Olsen (Iowa) *
1996: Kentucky; Rick Pitino (Providence) *
1995: UCLA; Jim Harrick (Pepperdine)
1994: Arkansas, Nolan Richardson (Tulsa)
1993 and 1982: UNC, Dean Smith (UNC assistant) -- Hired at age 29; only three years removed from being the golf coach at the US Air Force Academy
1990: UNLV, Jerry Tarkanian (Long Beach State)
1989: Michigan, Steve Fisher (Michigan assistant)
1988: Kansas, Larry Brown (Every Job in Creation)*
1987, 1981 and 1976: Indiana, Bob Knight (Army)
1986 and 1980: Denny Crum, Louisville (UCLA assistant)
1985: Rollie Massimino, Villanova (Penn assistant)
1984: Georgetown, John Thompson (HS coach)
1983: N.C. State, Jim Valvano (Iona)
1979: Michigan State, Jud Heathcote (Montana)
1978: Kentucky, Joe Hall (Kentucky assistant)
1977: Marquette, Al McGuire (Belmont Abbey)

 

Tap, I've never broken it down like that, but that goes along with something I've said for years when it comes to big-time coaching hires.
There's something to be said for how hungry a guy is. Guys like Billy Donovan stand out to me, because of everything he did at Florida, he's known to be one hell of a hard worker. Not that Florida was a complete garbage team, but he worked his ass off to prove it could be the best. He got a core group together that ultimately made him look very smart.
History doesn't change with the last two years, but going out and spending huge money on a coach, as you've pointed out, doesn't necessarily mean squat.

 

St. John's lost a $10M-30M pledge from a wealthy Long Island (Garden City) benefactor when they passed over the Irish Catholic Matt Doherty the last time around. The hiring of Seth Greenberg would shock me, unless I'm missing something.

 

I heard Penders got canned today. Any truth to that story? SportsbyBrooks is reporting it.

 

He's expected to resign tomorrow. Crazy story. I can only wait to hear what went down. As a UH fan, I was completely taken aback by the news.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/6923499.html

 

Weird, all of the UH fans I know were calling for his head all season. They were mainly upset with UH winning the CUSA tournament for fear it would save Penders' job.

 

Houston's problems certainly help explain why Michael Young's kid is going to Providence. Just hope he can play a little D.
Methinks Penders has one more job in him...full circle to Fordham?

 

I think Houston could do a lot of worse than Penders - why would they can him?

And I'm wondering - who are the best mid-major coaches out there, the ones who can really coach?

I am always fascinated by hiring and firing process in colleges because a lot of times I come away saying "what the hell were they thinking?"

 

I know nothing about the details of the situation at UH, but if you look at their record, this was actually the worst regular season Penders had at UH. They had a sub .500 record in CUSA and got hot at the right time.

Wouldn't it normally be time to let a coach go if he's in his sixth season, has never made the tournament, and then posts his worst regular season record? Yeah, UH can certainly do worse, but I applaud UH for not keeping a coach merely because his team got hot in the conference tournament.