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

OK, I'm working under the assumption that no hires have been made today.

Here's the shell.

Who is the coach next year at:

Tennessee -
Oklahoma -
Arkansas -
Missouri -
Georgia Tech -
NC State -

If there's a school I'm forgetting, add it to the list.

 

Can ESPN hire someone with a show cause to do hoops commentary? I think that might be a bit much even for them, although I agree that Pearl would be great on TV.

 

ESPN has a story that Anderson is staying at Missouri. Now do Arkansas and Oklahoma get in a bidding war for Buzz Williams?

It would be interesting to see Arkansas go after another former UF assistant and try to hire Shaka Smart, whose stock has to be pretty high right about now. I think Katz had him listed as a possibility for the UT job.

 

They hired Valvano, although he probably would've been a show cause if it existed 20 years ago.

 

Jeter took his name out of consideration for Bradley, despite the bump in pay that would've brought him up to around $700,000 reportedly. He's didn't receive a raise from Milwaukee, and is currently making over $400,000 with five years left on his contract.

 

A bidding war for Buzz Williams?

Dear God.

You are joking right? And if you are not, it says everything we need to know about how severely lacking the college basketball world is of legitimate big-time basketball coaches.

Don't get me wrong, Buzz Williams is a nice coach, he does a very nice job at Marquette but does anyone really believe he is an elite coach capable of taking these programs to another level?

 

I went to undergrad at Central Arkansas. The year was pretty much a lost cause with or without Big Nasty. It was their first year of full eligibility at the DI level and I don't think any of the players were Corliss' recruits. I would expect him to have at least 4 seasons at UCA, and probably more, unless he quits and/or geinto some sort of scandal. When I went there, the school was a mediocre DII school. We'll see how they do as the fourth DI school in a small state lacking a lot of local recruiting bases.

I think Corliss actually has the drive to be a head coach. He was coaching some small Arkansas college, for free, where he had to drive the team van to games.

 

My brother, a KU alum, texted me and said "thanks Mizzou for giving Anderson 2 million and taking yourself out of the Shaka Smart sweepstakes."

 

Not sure why everybody is shitting themselves over Shaka Smart. He inherited a good team and hasn't done much aside from the run to the Sweet 16, which is a fine weekend's work, I'll give you, but ehh ... finished fourth in the CAA behind Hofstra, losing four of five down the stretch. That team had four starters back, none of whom were recruited by him. I don't doubt he's a good coach who's going to get better, but holy shit, the hype is pretty silly.

 

Maybe they're excited about Shaka Smart because Mack McCarthy ain't walking through that door!

[/JohnnyTaylor]

 

This year he took a team that lost Larry Sanders early to the draft and led them to wins over Purdue, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, George Mason and ODU and into the Sweet 16. CAA was good enough this year that fourth place wasn't a bad accomplishment and they've played pretty consistently except for the aformentioned slump (though they did knock Wichita State off the bubble at their place in the middle of it)

Plus VCU has a cradle of coaches reputation now, which helps sell him. Sure, Capel got canned but Grant is a hot name right now.

 

Smart money's on former UT assistant coach Lawrence Frank to replace Pearl.

Then again, Hamilton hasn't been too smart of late so who really knows?