It's that time of year: College coach carousel!

The last coach who went anywhere after taking the Wyoming job was Don DeVoe. It's no Tulsa.

 

Personal memory jog:
1987 NCAA Tournament, first round, Huntsman Center, Salt Lake City -- Fennis Dembo, with help from hulking center Eric Lechner, destroy Reggie Miller and UCLA.
1988 NCAA Tournament, first round, Huntsman Center, Salt Lake City -- Fennis Dembo and hulking center Eric Lechner are run off the court by Gathers, Kimble, Gaines, Fryer, etc. as LMU takes its show to a national stage.

 

"How many 'bounds I got?!?"

 

Indeed. The KC Star had a blog post listing the coaches who make 2 million. Among them, only Anderson and the new guy at Arizona haven't gone to a Final Four.

I completely understand Mizzou's desire to keep Anderson... but for that price, he'd have to do a hell of a lot more than just shit the bed over the last two months like they did this year.

My official stance now: fuck him. If he's going to go, then go. If he's going to stay, then pocket the money and build a team that's not as soft as tissue paper.

 

Old Dominion is what it is. Ain't getting any better. Is it a better job than Wyoming now? Yes. But Wyoming has the potential to blow it into West Virginia. Of course, potential isn't worth a damn on its own, but Wyoming should be much better than it's been.

As for Utah: It's not close. The basketball program is in a down cycle, but headed to the Pac-12, the only thing not better than ODU is it's most recent seasons.

On Smart: Yes, good coach. No question. But the hype is blinding. If I'm a BCS-conference AD on the hunt for a hire, I've got any number of guys well ahead of him, starting with Tim Miles at Colorado State, Doc Sadler at Nebraska, Ben Jacobson at UNI and that's just a few of the younger guys. Then there's oldsters Fran Dunphy and Stew Morrill and if you want to talk about guys who have had a big-school shot but might deserve another you can get into the Tommy Amakers and Dan Monsons. Much as I'm not a fan of some of the guys I just mentioned, an argument can be made for all of them over Smart.

 

Amaker remains a laughable game coach. Even with all the recruiting rope fair Hahvard tossed him, he couldn't beat Princeton on a neutral, and got his doors blown off at garbage-scow Okie State.

 

First I've heard that South Carolina might be opening up next year. Are people that upset with Horn?

 

I was just tossing out names off the top of my head. I'm sure if I think hard there's 10 better than those I just named. Smart would be a fine hire someplace, but if I'm choosing him or Tim Miles, I take Tim Miles.

 

I think Steve Alford may be in play, at Missouri or Tennessee. There were rumors that Alford interviewed at Mizzou after Quin Snyder was fired and Alford was still at Iowa.

He may be happy in New Mexico, but I can't believe his ego is being stroked much by being at a school that some perceive to be a mid-major, in a mid-major conference. The prospect of moving back into a BCS conference must be a draw for him.

The only way I think he'd not consider Missouri or Tennessee would be if he's banking on staying another year or 2 at New Mexico, have Crean continue to falter at Indiana and get fired, and then count on the Hoosiers calling him home. That may be a dangerous assumption on his part, considering they haven't seemed to be at all interested in him as a coach yet.

 

Alford's not going to either of those places. He's going to wait at least another season for the right opportunity to open up.

 

ODU, like most mid-majors of any consequence, has dreams of being the next Gonzaga or Butler. It has good facilities across the board (football stadium still needs work, but for FCS it's more than fine), fairly consistent success in most sports and it spends more money on sports than most mid-majors. It's no threat to join the ACC or Big East, but I don't know that it's reached the peak of its reasonable expectations.

West Virginia was propelled in part by the company it kept. Wyoming will never have it as good as they have it from the inception of the MWC to this year. They fell on the right side of the MWC/WAC schism. But the MWC will take a hit with the loss of Utah, BYU and TCU. There's a reason Wyoming was never mentioned in the conference realignment dance. Wyoming could become a contender in the new-look MWC ... eventually ... but unless Taylor has a yearning for the Rockies, I can't see how it'd be worth it for him to uproot for a reclaimation project that at best is a lateral move.

 

Meaning Indiana? I wonder if IU would choose Alford over the Butler coach. I would take the Butler coach in a heartbeat.