Well with Indiana’s Mike Davis making it official that he is a lame duck, the speculation jumps the tracks about where coaches will go and what will happen.
Andy Katz at ESPN.com writes of the trend this year to be coaches at other schools not wanting to have their names dragged around in advance.
Questions will be asked of prospective candidates, who will then predictably deny any interest. Athletic directors will posture to show they can keep their own head coaches. And of course plenty of coaches will play the game of Job Search that will ultimately land them a hefty raise.
But the overriding theme for these three high-profile gigs (and they may not be the only ones that pop up) is the reluctance of big-name candidates to be part of a formal coaching search.
For example, if Indiana wants Iowa’s Steve Alford, then the Hoosiers will have to go get him, according to a source close to Alford. Alford isn’t about to do a dance with his alma mater and go through a formal interview process with three or four other candidates. A coach at a rival school can’t afford to do that.
The same would be true if Indiana were to go after Marquette’s Tom Crean. He can’t afford a slow waltz with a school only to risk not being chosen. Nor should he have to dance.
This unwillingness to join the search process will be seen throughout the country at places like Wake Forest, where Skip Prosser could be contacted by Cincinnati. West Virginia’s John Beilein, a highly coveted coach, can’t simply flirt with breaking his deal in Morgantown. He would have to do it and go, not waffle over whether to stay or bolt.
Geez name coaches not wanting to be attached to searches, where are the Bobby Petrinos of college basketball coaches?
Greg Doyel takes the coaching change potential to a tongue-in-cheek extreme for the potential turnover and dominoes. Pitt and Jamie Dixon are included in the game.
Arizona State: This job belongs to Rob Evans — for now. When he goes, the Sun Devils will pursue Pittsburgh’s Jamie Dixon. And Dixon, a West Coast guy with the confidence and ability to wake this sleeping giant, will say yes. Dark horse pick: Lon Kruger, who’s getting the message that UNLV isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. And whose son, Kevin, will be an ASU senior guard next season.
Pittsburgh: By replacing Ben Howland and winning just as big, Dixon demonstrated that successions can work. Next in line at Pittsburgh is associate head Barry Rohrssen, who helped stock the program with talent and would be an even more devastating recruiter in the Northeast with the words “head coach” on his business card. Dark horse pick: Bucknell’s Pat Flannery, a nearly lifelong resident of Pennsylvania, can X-and-O with anyone.
He also lists NC St. assistant and former Pitt great Larry Harris as the darkhorse for the Duquesne job. I’m not sure Duquesne is going back to the Pitt well for a coach after Darrelle Porter didn’t work out for them. Like I said, definitely has a tongue-in-cheek feel to it. I wouldn’t read much into it at this time.
Hopefully this is just coincidence and not a negative reflection. Either way, I hope the Big East got its money from XM up front for the broadcast rights.
XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.’s losses soared in the fourth quarter on higher costs for marketing and acquiring subscribers, and a director quit over disagreements about the company’s direction, warning of a looming “crisis.”
Investors punished the shares of the Washington, D.C.-based company, sending them down $1.27, or 5 percent, to close at $23.98 in very heavy volume Thursday afternoon on the Nasdaq Stock Market. They reached a 52-week low of $22.94 earlier in the day.
Of particular concern to investors was the unexpected departure of Pierce J. Roberts Jr. from XM’s board of directors, who said in his resignation letter that he was “troubled” by the company’s current path. Roberts, the former chief telecom banker at Bear Stearns, had served on the board’s audit, compensation and nominating committees. He had been a director for five years.
“Given current course and speed there is, in my view, a significant chance of a crisis on the horizon,” Roberts wrote in the letter, which the company disclosed in a regulatory filing. “Even absent a crisis, I believe that XM will inevitably serve its shareholders poorly without major changes now.”
Now from the comments, there have been some good ones. Jamie H. did a better job than I did in trying to explain why it was good for Pitt that St. John’s beat Rutgers:
… if you are familiar with the Seeding Sheets the Selection Committee uses, they break down your schedule into records vs teams ranked 1-25, 25-50, 50-100, 100-200 etc in the RPI. So it is better for us to keep St. Johns’ RPI as high as possible, so that we dont have any losses to sub-100 RPI teams. We beat Rutgers, so their RPI moving below 100 wont hurt us. Losing to sub-100 RPI teams looks bad, and the Committee will dock you for it. Regardless of your overall RPI (which isnt affected by the Rutger-Johnnies game).
The oft-cited (by me) Ken Pomeroy has a breakdown on his RPI page so you can get a better visual.
Speculation about Aaron Gray is also a speculative discussion. Eric R. essentially sums up my view.
If the Panthers make a strong run in the post season (i.e. Sweet 16 on), there will be a plethura of national stories about Pitt. You can bet on a lot of those stories focusing on a number of individual players, including Gray (assuming he continues to put up consistant numbers). That would certainly raise Gray’s stock and put him, possibly, in the NBA. If however, the Panthers get knocked out early, the possibility of Gray returning increases.
Bottom line: Wait until the end of March and it will be easier to tell.
My feeling is more that Pitt has to get to the Elite 8 or better for the attention on Gray to reach a point where the buzz pushes him higher. At the Sweet 16, there are still enough teams and players to diffuse the stories. I think more like what happened with Dwayne Wade at Marquette. The talk about him was there, but it was still an undercurrent until he became unstoppable against Pitt and then Kentucky. If Pitt had beaten Marquette, Wade may not have been a lottery pick.
It’s an interesting conflict Pitt hasn’t had to wrestle to this point. The better Pitt does, the greater the chance Gray leaves early. Considering last year was supposed to be the year it all came together for Pitt, and what happened, I will happily wish Gray well in the pros if Pitt gets past the Sweet 16.
Looking to the next game, I’m really hoping for a Marquette win over Georgetown tonight. The last thing I want is Pitt to go into the Bradley Center against a desperate, but good team, that has lost 3 straight.
