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

It's probably thanks to the Final Four run that they're able to do that. Over the weekend, I read this article about how the CAA divvies up revenue with an unbalanced plan that rewards success:

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20110402/ARTICLES/110409946/1045/sports0701?Title=Basketball-success-adds-12-6-million-to-CAA-s-coffers

Found it fascinating how huge of a dividend George Mason's Final Four run is still paying and how long VCU's run will be paying out.

 

TD is reporting $1.2 a year in base salary for Shaka for five years. So maybe 1.5, 1.6 total?

 

Wonder how long that'll keep him there. I'd be rather Shaka'd if he stayed to the end of his contract. Guessing his next move will be for $2.0 mininum, and after turning down NC State, maybe more.

 

^

Frank Haith can get it done, and wants a chance where the school actually cares about basketball and in a conference where his school will have a much better chance.

Leonard Hamilton has proven to be an outstanding coach in Tallahassee, in part because he was given a chance to do things his way and enough time to mold the program to his vision. Coral Gables is not a big basketball area. And his NBA stint was controlled by Michael Jordan.

In Tallahassee, he has found some long, athletic guys who will defend you coming off the bus and to the locker-room toilet, much less the confines of a basketball court.

Frank Haith has done well given the fact that few, if anyone, care about his sport in Coral Gables. To many there, it seems as if basketball is nothing but a bridge between the BCS bowl game and baseball season. To boot, he'll have a chance to get better recruits and convince those players that they have a chance in that league. Was he going to be able to tell anyone with a straight face that the same was going to happen with Miami in the current ACC?

Good for him for getting out on his terms. Word had it that his time was running out before Kirby Hocutt left Coral Gables to take the AD job in Lubbock. But why was his time running out? Did someone down there suddenly think that not only was the school and region going to care about and commit to basketball, but also come up with the master plan to knock off the ACC bullies on a consistent basis?

 

The Sean Miller angle is fun and multi-faceted. NCSU didn't offer him the job when it was last open five years ago ... and, according to the story, he would have accepted.

Miller's younger brother Archie, who just accepted the job at Dayton, played for NCSU under Herb Sendek while Sean Miller was an assistant there.

And Shaka Smart says no. NCSU's loss and VCU's gain. While I'm still a believer in Smart, the issue regarding his long-term ability to recruit will linger until a one-year run morphs into a program. It happened at Gonzaga and Butler, and it can be done at VCU. And, hopefully, Smart is the guy for them.

 

Smart is just waiting for a better offer that likely will come about a year from now.

 

I'm guessing the laughter coming out of Lawrence right now can be heard in East St. Louis. This is porn for Jayhawk fans.

Haith may wind up being a tremendous hire for Mizzou but, damn, I wouldn't want to be Mike Alden right now.

 

So if I'm reading all this venom correctly, Mizzou is more worried about the sizzle than the steak.

Not a bad decision by Mike Alden, just not a popular one. Surely he had his contingency plans in order if Mike Anderson departed, didn't he? Unless he's incompetent, lives under a rock or is plain clueless, Anderson's departure shouldn't have caught him by surprise.

 

Haith will exceed expectations and will be gone in three years.

 

To play the "what-if" game ... If VCU finishes fourth in the Colonial again and loses in the first round of the NCAAs after being a bubble team (a very likely scenario IMO), does this year's run get viewed as more of a fluke and how much does Smart's stock go down?

 

A Wichita Eagle blog is saying that Gregg Marshall is going to announce on his radio show tonight that he's staying at WSU.

 

How many guys have to turn down State before it calls Sidney Lowe back? Dereck Whittenburg's coaching, isn't he?