GRADING OUT THE COACHING CHANGES

by Thermocaster, The Meaningful Collateral

It's still April, which means that interest college basketball is still *technically* alive, albeit eating strained carrots and spending its time staring out the nursing home window. Before May arrives and puts the sport into hibernation until October, I thought it'd make sense to grade out the various coaching changes that we've seen since the regular season ended in early March. Two grades for each entry: A grade for the program, and a grade for the coach.

SOUTH CAROLINA (Hired WKU's Darrin Horn)
Program Grade: B+
Coach Grade: C

The Gamecocks could've certainly done much worse than tabbing Horn, who just took his team to the Sweet 16 and was getting mentions for other jobs. What I have to wonder is why Horn jumped at the chance to coach SC, which is one of those ne'er-do-well power conference programs whose ceiling seems to be the NIT semifinals every season. Horn now faces perhaps the toughest recruiting task in the whole SEC, having to compete with both his conference rivals AND the ACC, which sorta lords over that part of the country...and all that in a state that couldn't really care less about basketball.

OREGON STATE (Hired Brown's Craig Robinson)
Program Grade: D
Coach Grade: Pass/Fail

Anytime you can jump from the Ivy League to a power conference, you're doing well. That said, Craig Robinson must have aspirations to become an NBA assistant, because Oregon State is truly one of the dead-end jobs in college basketball. What little local talent there is gets eaten up by the Phil Knight University Ducks, or by the more prestigious schools to the north and south. The fact that OSU had to settle for a guy that 95% of the country hadn't heard of before should tell you something about the state of their program.

INDIANA (Hired Marquette's Tom Crean)
Program Grade: A
Coach Grade: B+

How IU pulled this one off is anybody's guess, particularly in light of the absolute stupidity of their last two coaching searches. Crean brings instant credibility to a program that was sorely lacking it, but stability is a ways off. Ultimately, the move will prove beneficial to Crean's career, but taking a job at a school with future sanctions hanging over it is an awfully risky proposition.

CALIFORNIA (Hired Mike Montgomery)
Program Grade: A+
Coach Grade: C

Cal pulled off the rare double in this hire --- not only did they get a Final Four coach who lived nearby, but they also stuck a red-hot poker up the ass of Stanford fans everywhere by hiring their former coach. The decision was made even more enjoyable for Cal fans when Trent Johnson got chased out of town by Bob Bowlsby a week later. Montgomery has his work cut out for him --- Cal is decidedly fourth in the recruiting pecking order for the California Pac-10 schools, and their facilities leave a lot to be desired.

PROVIDENCE (Hired Drake's Keno Davis)
Program Grade: A-
Coach Grade: C-

Why, Keno, why? The Friars program has enjoyed success exactly twice in the last 25 years --- the first was due to Rick Pitino, and the second was due to Austin Croshere.The Big East is a deathtrap for programs with small recruiting bases (as DePaul, Rutgers, and Seton Hall have discovered). It does make sense that Davis would want to return to his family's roots in the Northeast, but I really think he could've gotten a better job if he'd waited a year.


OKLAHOMA STATE (Hired UMass's Travis Ford) Program Grade: B
Coach Grade: B

Getting out of UMass was a top priority for Ford, and he managed to land a job at a school that still cares about basketball. So he's got that going for him. But man, the Big 12 South is a rough environment these days --- Barnes at Texas, Drew at Baylor, Capel at Oklahoma, and Turgeon at A&M have all demonstrated a pretty high level of proficiency. Eight games a year against those squads is going to wear on you after a bit. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State took a shot at the moon with the whole Bill Self thing...and they missed completely. Salvaging Ford out of the situation shows that at least they didn't panic.

STANFORD: (Hired no one as of yet)
Program Grade: F

Bob Bowlsby boggles the mind. How do you chase a coach off two weeks after a Sweet 16 appearance and NOT have a replacement immediately ready to offer the job to? The Stanford coaching search started on April 10. Eleven days later, what do we have? More to the point, what high-profile candidates are left that would be really interested in this job? Coaches want things nice and easy, and dealing with the stringent academic requirements on recruiting at a place like Palo Alto is something that most aren't willing to do. Krzyzewski does it at Duke, but they get first pick of the smart kids. Stallings does it at Vanderbilt. Carmody does it at Northwestern, and they want to fire him for not making the tournament.