College basketball coaching carousel

That's a good point.

 

AP is reporting that Trent Johnson is leaving LSU to take the TCU job.

I know he hasn't done much (or anything?) in the last couple seasons, but he just got another year added on to his contract at $1.5 million per, and he's leaving that job to take over a TCU program that surely won't pay that much and is moving into the Big 12, where Johnson won't be in any better position to compete for a league title.

Is this just him getting out on his own terms before he gets fired after floundering again next season? Or maybe he's just that afraid of Missouri joining the SEC ...

 

To me, Johnson leaving LSU for TCU is roughly as strange as Johnson leaving Stanford for LSU. Maybe it's just me, but it seems the natural order of progression from least prestige to most would be TCU to LSU to Stanford, not the other way around.

 

With all due respect to the Fort Worth school, I can't imagine any coach leaving LSU for TCU in any sport.

 

And extrapolating that out further, since the TCU coach left for Ohio, the current pecking order in this could be expressed as ...

Ohio > TCU > LSU > Stanford

 

It's hard to understand Johnson getting an extension at LSU when his teams so greatly underachieved, especially considering the talent he had. I think he's bailing out, but it's been a long time since TCU was competitive in any of its leagues.

 

So the Ohio coach should have held out for Chicago State instead of settling for Illinois.

 

Trent was leaving one step ahead of the posse. Same as the guy he replaced. Trent just lost his best player, who left to go play in Europe. Writing on the wall said he had another NIT team coming back. Another NIT team = Trent getting fired at the end of next year.

Instead, he signs a six-year deal with TCU. He signed job security.

Same thing Christian did going to the MAC. He was getting paid $600k for what became a million-dollar job once TCU starts tapping into the Big East's BCS TV money. And he knew TCU would say "We need a million-dollar coach, and Christian is NOT a million-dollar coach." So he was going to be shown the door. So he left on his own terms. Exact same thing with Trent.

 

TCU's going to the Big 12, but your point is taken.

 

In basketball, Illinois > LSU every day of the week. Illini fans at least show up.

 

I would lean on the LSU job before the Illinois job -- although, in 1989, they were both prime jobs.

Illinois has been eclipsed by too many nearby "big time" programs in the last few years -- Wisconsin, Purdue, Ohio State, Missouri, Marquette, Michigan State. 20 years ago, Illinois was consistently better than all of them.

LSU is still a gold mine waiting to be tapped. What are the high-end programs nearby? None in Louisiana. None in Mississippi, although Southern had a decent year. Memphis is 400 miles away. Baylor is 450 miles from Baton Rouge. That's a ton a territory where there is no real competition.