College basketball thread...

Bill Self -- The Lute Olson Of The New Millennium.
(Yes, I know Lute finally won one, but check him out from, say, 87-95. All kinds of fail.)

 

That's when the bars in Tucson would close at 8 p.m. Everyone would leave after the first round.

 

This just in, Billy Donovan can coach. I thought Florida would be good, but not this good. By the end of the year, very few will want a piece of this young team.

And College Journalist, it's too little too late for UK. Unless they win out and make the SEC tourney finals, it's NIT City baby.

Can't wait to see how Louisville handles a trip to Storrs tonight.

 

If that's what St. John's is thinking, they're going to end up being the school that gets a bunch of guys raises (Hello, Arkansas).

If you're a Cal or Pitino, why would you leave your cushy situation to tackle a total rebuild job at St. John's, which even for those guys is going to take 3-4 years minimum to crack the top 5-6 of the Big East? Now, if that $5 million you threw out is even close to accurate, all bets are off. But that just seems like a fantasy when you consider that North Carolina pays Roy right around $3 milion and Alabama pays Nick Saban $4 million. Is Pitino gonna leave his $2.5 million job in the upper echelon of the Big East to go to the lower echelon? Is Cal gonna leave his $2 million job where he can be a top 3 seed in the NCAAs every year just by dominating his conference? That's a tough sell, if you ask me.

I think the more likely type guy would be a Sean Miller (even that could be a stretch), or a big name whose situation is kinda shaky and may be looking to get out like a Paul Hewitt.

 

Agreed, and I don't think they're going to do nearly enough. Hell, they aren't a lock for the NIT yet.

Louisville's game tonight should be interesting. UConn seemed to play well Saturday, but UofL keeps getting healthier. The Cards are still a Final Four contender despite the early struggles.

 

St. John's would never hire Calipari until after Carnesecca dies.

Cal constantly bad-mouthed Looie to recruits when he was an assistant at Pitt in the late 80s, including the aforementioned telling recruits Looie was ill and wouldn't last for four years.
The problem is St. John's needs Carnesecca as a fund-raiser but his presence keeps them from going after the high profile coach.

 

My cousin was recruited by St. John in the late 80s, but did not go there because he did not think Lou would be there when he was a senior. I do not think he was recruited by Pitt, though.

His buddy Sean Miller was, and that is where he might have heard it from.

 

And what makes St. John's such a dream job, anyway?

Queens? Make me laugh.

Even when Looie was dealt the hand of his life, he couldn't beat the Hoyas in a game that mattered.

With isolated exceptions, the talent's headed to where they don't have to freeze their asses off during basketball season. And can't blame them.

 

Uhhhhh, NYC? Biggest media market in the world? Big East? Playing your home games at MSG?

And Pitino was a stretch, I admit. I was just throwing that out there.

As for Calipari -- and Pitino for that matter -- the coaching biz is all about egos. You don't think walking into a situation like St. John's and turning it around in a few years' time wouldn't whet the appetite of a guy like Calipari, and all the great press it would get him? Especially after how he got run out of New Jersey? Of course it would. Guys like him live for that kind of thing, not to mention the money.

And why would Calipari leave Memphis? Because it's in friggin' Conference USA, that's why. You don't think he'd rather be coaching in perhaps the most heavily covered men's hoops conference in the country than in one that's a mishmosh of mostly crappy football schools? Or coaching in major media markets up and down the East Coast than in outposts like Hattiesburg, Miss. and Greenville, N.C.? The guy can recruit top talent to Memphis -- imagine what he could do in NYC. I'd be willing to bet he'd keep most of the major talent in the city if he wound up there.

Again, I'm not saying it's going to happen. I personally think the guy's a scumbag. I'm just throwing possibilities out there. The Carnesecca thing could be a major sticking point from what spnited and other people in the know have mentioned. But, like I said before, sometimes the chance to win and returning to the big-time trumps everything else.

 

Then howcum, except during that VERY brief period when Looie caught lightning in a bottle, it's never, ever happened?

I'll hang up and listen.

 

Wash. St. gets torched by a mediocre Arizona team and stays in the top 10 (coaches' poll).

 

You're mistaken about Az. If all hands stay healthy, you'll see . . .