Mike DeCourcy in the Sporting News has an interesting bit about how b-ball coaches get recycled their images rehabbed a lot quicker and frequently these days because they have a better shot at good paying assistant jobs after failing in their first stint as a head coach. Unlike in the ’90s when the NCAA had some pay restrictions on assistant coaches.

Consider the case of Paul Evans, who reached the Elite Eight at Navy in 1986, won two Big East championships at Pittsburgh and made seven NCAA appearances at the two schools before the Panthers dumped him in 1994. The guy who discovered David Robinson got a few interviews, mostly from programs that wanted to pay in canned goods.

Coaches who lost jobs in the ’90s became victims of the heinous decision by NCAA members to restrict one member of each Division I staff to making $12,000 annually. Those whose salaries had been limited eventually won a lawsuit against the NCAA, but the rule effectively depressed assistant coach salaries the rest of the decade.

In other words, you either had to go back to a bottom rung as an assistant or try to work your way back-up as a coach at a small D-II or -III school. Evans was also older and less inclined to start over on the coaching ladder.