Rush The Court

Ryan Restivo is an RTC correspondent and contributor.  He writes for SienaSaintsBlog as well as RotoSavants.com in his spare time.

Norm Roberts and Bobby Gonzalez joined the unemployment line this past week after both failed at Big East jobs.  Roberts, a former Kansas assistant coach and player at Queens College, could not hold onto the local talent in New York City to win at St. John’s. The Red Storm barely missed out on Lance Stephenson, losing him to Big East foe Cincinnati, which combined with an 81-101 record in six years brought him to the firing line.

Roberts Was Let Go on Friday (AP/N. Wass)

Meanwhile, across the Hudson in South Orange, it was Bobby Gonzalez’s fiery personality that did him in at Seton Hall. After four years and no NCAA Tournament appearances, Gonzalez was shown the door.  The firing came days after former Pirate Robert Mitchell was arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery, burglary and possession of a weapon. The Pirates didn’t show much discipline on Tuesday night either: star Herb Pope was ejected in Tuesday night’s NIT game for punching a Texas Tech player in the groin and Gonzalez receive his seventh technical foul of the season.

The Dean of Seton Hall Law School, Patrick E. Hobbs, who also oversees the athletic department, said the school decided to fire Gonzalez before learning of Mitchell’s arrest.  Now both will be in the search to find candidates to bring more energy, and most of all wins, to the New York metro area schools.  Hobbs said that the contract extension given to Gonzalez was no additional financial risk for a school that cut four sports in February to save $1.5 million. Sources have said Seton Hall is expected to be looking to pay around $500,000 or slightly more as an annual salary to its next coach.

Meanwhile St. John’s was paying Roberts approximately $650,000 annually and could be expected to shell out more money for the candidate they desire. St. John’s Athletic Director Chris Monasch said the parameters of the coach they are looking for include NCAA Tournament appearances and good character. “We want to hire someone who has a record of success of getting into the NCAA tournament,” Monasch said to the AP. “In trying to find the right person, probably the safest choice is someone who has done it at this level, someone who believes in the mission of school and understands New York.”

Would Greenberg Entertain a Move to NYC?

No doubt the job that has better upside is St. John’s over Seton Hall. The Red Storm will return over 90% of its roster, nine scholarship rising seniors, and went 17-16 this year in Roberts’ highest win total. The Red Storm could be one big-time star New York City recruit away from being a Big East contender next year.  Here are some of the top names floating around as potential candidates for each of these two jobs.

• Read the rest of this entry »

The Newark Star-Ledger has announced that Seton Hall head coach Bobby Gonzalez has been fired.  Gonzalez is lucky number seven, as far as coaches being fired since the conference tournaments ended.

Gonzalez posted a 63-56 record at Seton Hall, and went 25-46 in the Big East — but the cited report states that it wasn’t his teams’ performance on the basketball court that got him fired.  It was “a pattern of behavior not reflective of the image the school wants to present.”

There are three incidents that immediately come to mind in terms of this bad behavior.  Everyone remembers the Keon Lawrence incident on the New Jersey Turnpike that started the season.  Just last week, Gonzalez bounced forward Robert Mitchell from the team just before the Pirates found out who they were playing in the NIT because of some comments Mitchell made about Gonzalez to a local paper.

The final straw had to come last night in the Pirates’ NIT game against Texas Tech, when SHU’s Herb Pope twice rang TTU forward Darko Cohadarevic’s bell…

And so ends the Gonzalez era at Seton Hall.

Since the whispers started about the NCAA expanding March Madness to 96 teams opinion on the issue has been divided into camps: the traditionalists (bloggers) and the radicals (coaches). Wait a minute. What?!? Yes. That’s right. Bloggers want to stay old school and coaches want to throw a wrench into the established system. . .

While coaches like to pontificate about expanding tournament to let more “deserving” teams in and give more players a chance to play in March Madness it is pretty clear to most neutral observers that the real motive is quite clear–keeping their jobs. With the recent spate of firings the coaches will continue to lobby hard for expansion. Since the season ended just a few days ago the list of coaching unemployed has grown to 6 coaches (and growing. . .):

Although a NCAA Tournament bid would not have guaranteed that these coaches kept their jobs, it would have most likely kept the boosters off their backs for some more time. And that’s all that a coach wants, right? Another year or two to collect a paycheck doing a substandard job and hoping to reach the longevity bonuses before they decide to get the booster funded golden parachute. Basically think of a college basketball version of investment bankers wanting to tweak the scoring metrics (adjust earnings in that case) to make themselves look better. Everyone knows how that turned out for the financial markets and the entire country.

You may see some familiar faces in the unemployment line

Now you’re probably asking yourself why the big-name coaches would care and that is a perfectly reasonable question with a perfectly reasonable answer. While the Mike Krzyzewskis and Jim Boeheims of the college basketball world will never have to worry about getting fired they have are plenty of their friends who are not quite as successful and that is not even talking about the dying branches on their coaching tree. Let’s take a look at some of their most famous branches:

• Krzyzewski: Mike Brey, Tommy Amaker, Quin Snyder, Tim O’Toole, Bob Bender, Chuck Swenson, Mike Dement, and David Henderson
• Boeheim: Rick Pitino, Tim Welsh, Louis Orr, Wayne Morgan, and Ralph Willard

Outside of Brey and Pitino that is a pretty mediocre group of coaches. Some of the others have had a modicum of success too, but overall that group has used more than its fair share of U-Haul trucks. And if the coaches don’t get their way they might be following in the footsteps of the late ODB.

Oregon head coach Ernie Kent has been fired, according to a report from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  The first report about this actually surfaced during the second half of the Ducks’ Senior Day game against Washington State — which they won, by the way, 74-66 — from Eugene’s KVAL-TV, who reported that Oregon A.D. Mike Bellotti had already told the coach that he wouldn’t be leading the Ducks next year.

During his time at UO, Kent has posted a 234-172 record.  This is his 13th season at the helm.  Kent has taken Oregon to the NCAA Tournament five times, reaching the Elite 8 in 2002 and 2007.

It’s assumed that Kent will indeed coach the team through the Pac-10 Tournament, so now thoughts turn to whom his replacement could be.  Back in January, FoxSports.com’s Jeff Goodman had named Kent as a coach who was sitting on a 300-degree hot seat this season, and today raised the possibilities of Gonzaga’s Mark Few and Minnesota’s Tubby Smith as candidates for the Oregon job.  Few’s name is brought up for just about every major coaching vacancy within 15 minutes of the opening being announced, but there’s a small new wrinkle, here — Few was born in Oregon and graduated from UO in 1987.  In case you’re wondering whether or not Oregon could attract such heavy-hitters in the college basketball coaching ranks, consider these two items:  1) Oregon has a brand new arena opening up next year, and 2) it’s only natural that Nike chairman Phil Knight — a UO grad and a member of the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame for “Special Contribution to Sports” in Oregon — would be involved, whether overtly or secretly, in the selection process.  And when you talk about Nike and Phil Knight getting involved…suddenly, anything is possible.

OK, maybe that headline’s a tad unfair, because by just about every account, Jerry Wainwright is a top guy.  Who knows, maybe being a nice guy got him a little more time at DePaul than anyone else would have received.  Either way, Wainwright was let go today as head coach of the Blue Demons.  He took over before the 2005 season and built a 59-80 record while running things there.  In a twist that might make that ol’ Yalie Stephen V. Benet proud, it’s now The Demons and Tracy Webster, the assistant who was promoted to interim head coach for the rest of this season.  The buzz on Wainwright’s departure began in earnest last night, but we should give props to Sporting News’ Mike DeCourcy for listing him as numero uno on his list of coaches under pressure in a pre-season article.

Wainwright in better -- yes, better -- days.

Wainwright’s squad had started out 5-1 this season, scoring wins over a decent Detroit team, losing a close one to current darlings Tennessee, and handing 14-1 Northern Iowa their only blemish on the season.  There were a few cupcake wins and a couple of setbacks to a pair of pretty good SEC teams in Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.  These early performances likely served to mitigate the sting left over from last year’s crippling 0-18 conference record, but then came a home loss to American (3-13), a loss at Florida Gulf Coast (5-10), and eventually three convincing losses to Big East powerhouses (at Pittsburgh, Georgetown, at Villanova) to start the conference slate that put the Blue Demons at 7-8, and turned out to be Wainwright’s undoing.  In that last game against Villanova, by the way, Wainwright actually suffered a torn MCL and broken tibia when he was hit by a diving player near the DePaul bench.

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The Orchestra has finished its recital at Penn a little earlier than expected today, as the Philadelpia Daily News first reported that head coach Glen Miller has been let go by the Quaker program after getting off to a horrendous 0-7 start this year. This was Miller’s fourth season at the school, the third in a row of which appeared headed toward another disappointment, so the school pulled the trigger and placed former Penn star Jerome Allen into the top spot on an interim basis. Allen is an interesting choice, as he has no head coaching experience and only a few games as an assistant under his belt, but he is considered one of the all-time great Penn players (averaged 14/4/5 apg in a four-year career at Penn from 1991-95) and at a minimum should be able to energize the rabid Quaker faithful in the coming months.  Anything’s better than oh-fer, right? The Miller firing continues a somewhat troubling collegiate trend of ADs pulling the trigger on coaches midseason – just eleven days ago, Fordham’s Dereck Whittenburg was canned after a spate of transfers and a 1-4 start to the season, while last year Alabama dropped Mark Gottfried in January. We’re not sure that we’re a big fan of this, but we certainly understand the pressures involved at the administrative level of these athletic departments.

News broke yesterday that longtime Connecticut men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun and athletic director Jeff Hathaway are working on securing a long-term contract extension for the highly successful and equally embattled face of the program that could reach a maximum of six more years roaming the UConn bench.

The last 14 months have certainly been a roller-coaster ride for Calhoun, leading many to believe the 805-game winner may step down after 2008-09 to deal with his health problems and spend more time with his six grandchildren. Calhoun is a two-time cancer survivor, including dealing with extensive chemotherapy prior to last season, and recently suffered eight broken ribs in a bike accident in June. Calhoun also dealt with the Ken Krayeske “not a dime” press conference controversy, the Nate Miles restraining order and subsequent NCAA investigation, missing the first round game of the NCAA Tournament due to acute stress and, on the flip-side, a highly successful 31-5 (15-3) campaign that ended with a trip to the Final Four.

Instead of quitting amidst the gunfire, Calhoun will chug on. And in the end, this is the best possible scenario for Connecticut fans. Even at the ripe age of 67, Calhoun has the fire to recruit with the best young coaches in the business, spending seven of the first ten summer recruiting days traveling around the country pursuing the cream of the crop, just weeks after the bike crash. After losing an abundance of talent from last year’s squad, Calhoun has reloaded with five-star impact center Alex Oriakhi and his boarding school teammate Jamal Coombs-McDaniel along with four-star point guard Darius Smith. Connecticut remains in the hunt for superstar 2010 recruits Brandon Knight, Cory Joseph, Doron Lamb and Roscoe Smith. The fact that these recruits will know that Calhoun will be in Storrs for the long haul can only help in their recruitment.

One thing you know about Jim Calhoun: He’s a fighter. He won’t quit. Love him or hate him, few college coaches have the fire of the 67-year old Calhoun. With two national titles, three Final Fours, a Hall-of-Fame plaque to his resume and 557 career wins at Connecticut (including the love of almost every former player), an extension seems inevitable, even if it should extend into his mid-70s. While his doctor may not advise it, Calhoun’s never-wavering passion for coaching young men should trump all.

This story got lost in the Friday afternoon rush of people heading to happy hour, but Grambling St. University basketball made national news for the third time in a year that day, and unfortunately, not for anything good.  Rick Duckett, the head coach who (likely) orchestrated this particular crime against hoop-anity back in January, reportedly resigned after one of his transfer players, Henry White, fell ill during workouts and later died.   

Connecting the dots, it might make sense to presume that Duckett somehow felt responsible for White’s death, as the White family attorney asserts that it was common practice for Grambling coaches to run their players outside during intense summer heat and humidity, and had in fact done so that day (where two other players also fell ill).  The problem with that theory is twofold: first, Andy Katz reported on Saturday that Duckett claims he didn’t resign at all; rather, he was fired (technically he’s on leave until Oct. 31, then he’ll be released).  And not just him, but his entire staff of assistants save one (new interim coach Robert Washington, Jr.).  Second, on the day that White collapsed during workouts, Duckett wasn’t even at practice.  In fact, he wasn’t even on campus.  Instead, he was instead having an undisclosed medical procedure of his own at the time. 

So what in the name of Eddie Robinson is going on here? 

We understand the legal concept of vicarious liability, and if Duckett directed his assistants to run players through the sweatbox known as Louisiana humidity against all better judgment, we could believe that university officials are looking to CYA here.  But one question.  Don’t Grambling football players also run drills in the sweatbox throughout August?  In pads?  If true, it would appear difficult for us to believe an argument that it’s ok for the football team to run outdoors, but not the basketball team.   

It’s also clearly not performance-related.  Grambling takes its football team very seriously; basketball is pretty much an afterthought.  Duckett’s 6-23 record in his first and only year didn’t turn any heads, but the school’s had only two .500+ seasons since 1994, so there’s really nothing unusual about that.  The last head coach, Larry Wright, wasn’t much better: over nine seasons, he turned in a record of 88-160 (.355).  Furthermore, Duckett was successful at the D2 level, so there was reason to believe he could turn around the Grambling program. 

The bottom line about this is that something is missing from the story – Grambling officials are leaving something out.  Considering their recent history of making up stories about SWAC refs when it suits them, we’re not exactly surprised. 

We’ve been just as guilty as many others in speculating that Jim Calhoun, with his health issues and intolerance of alt-media gadflies, might be close to retirement.  A report today from the New Haven Register, however, dampens that assertion.  According to their sources, Calhoun is close to signing a multi-year extension with UConn, which probably belies the notion that Mr. Crankypants has any intention to retire soon.  Calhoun has one year remaining on his current deal which pays him a relatively paltry $1.6M per year (compared with the multiples of that other coaches are making), and if you hadn’t heard, he’s still making F4s at age 67. 

Holy Cross is set to announce its replacement for Ralph Willard today, naming Sean Kearney, a current assistant coach on Mike Brey’s Notre Dame staff, as the new head coach at the school.  Willard left his highly successful post there in June to become an assistant for Rick Pitino’s Louisville squad, and he’ll be replaced by, in an odd coincidence, another former Pitino assistant (Providence ‘87).  Kearney will find that the cupboard at the premier job in the Patriot League is far from bare, as four starters return for a team expected to compete for a conference title next season.  Seems like a good hire, as Mike Brey said, for Kearney to go from a private, academically-oriented Catholic school like ND to another like HC makes sense and is a “good fit.”

Coach K must be angling for another raise, because the cyclical Lakers rumor has reared its ugly head again, almost five years to the day after their last dalliance.  Did anyone anywhere at any point in this silly rumor’s life cycle believe for a split-second that Coach K might actually take that job?  Last we checked, the Lakers had a pretty darn good coach (you know, he of the ten rings) and they’re not exactly coming off a down time in franchise history (you know, 65 wins and a world title).  Furthermore, the Duke coach is a competitor if nothing else, and he’s been getting his butt kicked all over Tobacco Road by that other school six miles down 15-501 since Huckleberry Roy came to town (3-7 since 2004-05).  Coach K ain’t going nowhere until he proves that his blue-blooded program hasn’t been overtaken by his bitter rival, and the way things are going lately, he’ll need another ring himself (at the college level) to ensure that.  (h/t 850 the Buzz).

I’m beginning to think that there is some bizarre Arizona-USC connection going on after USC announced that former interim Wildcat  coach Kevin O’Neill was going to take over as the Trojans new head coach. You may remember O’Neill from the Lute Olson fiasco after the 2007-2008 season, but O’Neill also has prior coaching experience at the college (171-180  in 12 seasons) and pro level (helpful if you’re running a program like the one Tim Floyd apparently ran in LA the past few years).

To recap the action at Arizona and USC the past two years:

• O’Neill takes over for Olson on an interim basis, but then Lute stabs him in the back and comes back for a short period before eventually retiring. O’Neill goes to work for the Memphis Grizzlies for a season.
• Arizona hires Russ Pennell to take over for Olson after O’Neill is let go.
• Tim Floyd guides the Trojans to respectability before O.J. Mayo comes to town. The Trojans manage to make it back to the NCAA tournament the year after Mayo leaves.
• Arizona decides not to renew Pennell’s contract and starts searching for big name to take over. They decide on Floyd, who briefly decides to take the job before changing his mind. Arizona eventually hires Xavier head coach Sean Miller.
• Floyd resigns leaving USC scrambling to find a head coach as it loses multiple recruits who decide to go to other programs. USC gets turned down by several big names including Jamie Dixon and Reggie Theus before selecting O’Neill.

O’Neill led the Wildcats to a 19-15 record and yet another NCAA tournament bid in his single season in Tucson, but according to some sources had difficulty connecting with the Wildcat players. While that may be a problem at some programs, I’m sure that the administration at USC will appreciate having a coach of one of their two major programs who follows the rules. While we would normally consider USC one of the best positions in the country, O’Neill has his work cut out for him with recruits leaving in droves and NCAA sanctions on the horizon.

Ok, we’re going to put our tin foil hat on here for a few minutes.  It’s summer, and nobody is reading this anyway.  But we’re really having trouble understanding the news today that Holy Cross head coach Ralph Willard (and longtime Pitino buddy) will leave his successful, self-made program in Worcester, Mass. to become an assistant coach at Louisville.

Read that again: assistant coach at Louisville.

To open our conspiracy theory, let’s consider all the reasons that Willard shouldn’t have so much as considered this job, much less taken it.

• Willard’s been a head coach for the last 19 years, first at Western Kentucky, then at Pitt, and spending the last decade at Holy Cross.
• Holy Cross is Willard’s alma mater (Class of 1967), and he’s turned down other head coaching opportunities at higher profile places to stay there.
• Willard is arguably HC’s best coach ever.  In ten seasons he’s taken the Crusaders to four NCAA Tournaments as Patriot League champions, won 20+ games five times, and has gone 192-117 (.621) in his career there.  It’s safe to say that he could have held on to this job as long as he wanted it.
• It wouldn’t be unfathomable to believe that his salary, even at a Patriot League school, was higher than what Louisville can afford to pay its top assistant.  At worst, we’d expect the two to be comparable.

So in the spirit of 9/11 was Saddam’s Bush’s Israel’s doing paranoids everywhere, we have to wonder what the hell is going on here?

Then we started thinking… a lot has gone on at Louisville in the past few months.  To recap:

• After losing to underdog Michigan St. in the E8, stars Earl Clark and Terrence Williams are off to the NBA.
• Rick Pitino’s son, Richard, perplexingly left Louisville for another assistant job on Billy Donovan’s staff at Florida.
• The Karen Sypher situation.
• Rumors that Pitino was interested in the Sacramento Kings job.

Throw that in with the persistent rumors of a nameless medical condition dogging Pitino, and it wouldn’t be outside a reasonable realm of possibility for us to think that Ralph Willard has been promised something to become Pitino’s insurance policy.  What if Pitino’s legal battles, familial problems and/or medical issues require him to take a leave of absence for a bit, similar to what Lute Olson did at Arizona?  Wouldn’t it make sense to have a friend he’s known and trusted for 40+ years ready to move in at the helm if necessary?  Or what if Pitino is once again feeling his well-documented propensity for wanderlust, and although he wasn’t interested in taking the Kings job this spring, he would be interested in other more high-profile NBA/college jobs should they open up?  In that situation, he could essentially pull a Dean Smith/Bill Guthridge and leave the Louisville post to his top guy.

Or this could all be nonsense, chalked up to people sometimes doing irrational things, and we’re completely off base in our analysis.  You’ll excuse us as we now go watch the Apollo 11 space landing in Arizona from the comfort of our alien-built spaceship in Area 51 while riffing some fresh beats with 2Pac and Biggie.

According to Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports, Isiah Thomas has accepted an offer from Florida International University to become their head coach. We briefly discussed the situation yesterday, but now that it’s all but official it is probably a good time to review Isiah’s prior experience. As a basketball player, there is no question that he was an all-time great. As a basketball executive/coach? Not so much.

Here is a quick recap of his prior stints in a managerial role:

• Toronto Raptors (1994-1998): Serving as the GM and part-owner, he started by taking B.J. Armstrong with the #1 pick in the 1995 expansion draft. While Armstrong isn’t what you would consider #1 pick material, when you look at the other luminaries that were available it was probably a pretty good pick (at the very least he could show the young guys all the three championship rings Michael Jordan won for him that he won). Unfortunately, Armstrong refused to report to the team and was promptly traded. Even though the team was 67-179, Isiah did exhibit some draft acumen by taking Damon Stoudamire (turning the #7 pick into the Rookie of the Year), Marcus Camby (the #2 pick who might have won Rookie of the Year that year if it wasn’t for some guy named Allen Iverson), and Tracy McGrady (with #9 pick out of high school just 2 years after Isiah’s hilarious plan for Kevin Garnett). Sadly, this was probably the high point of Isiah’s managerial career.
• NBC (1998): Briefly worked with Bob Costas and Doug Collins. Not particularly memorable, but it worked out better than his last appearance on NBC (see below).

• CBA (1999-2000): Purchased the league for $10 million on October 7, 1999 and turned down an offer from the NBA to purchase it for $11 million and a percentage of the profits, which according to some sources would have been a $2 million profit (or a 20% ROI) in March 2000. Isiah then promptly proceeded to show everyone what a shrewd businessman he was for turning down the 20% ROI in 5 months by running the league into bankruptcy. [Ed. Note: The fact that the CBA Museum has a page for Isiah Thomas is amazing. Isn't that kind of like a Jewish charity museum starting an exhibit on Bernie Madoff?] Sadly, this was not the low point of Isiah’s managerial career.
• Indiana Pacers (2000-2003): Took over a team that Larry Bird had coached to the Eastern Conference finals and decided to change directions with a youth movement by playing Jermaine O’Neal, Jamaal Tinsley, and Al Harrington more minutes. Even though he had a respectable 131-115 regular season record, his stint is largely considered a failure as his team’s lost in the first round in each of his 3 seasons as a coach. Heading into Isiah’s 4th year, Larry Bird came back as President of Basketball Operations. At his press conference, Bird assured the media that he would work with Isiah. He promptly fired Thomas and replaced him with Rick Carlisle. [Lesson: Don't mess with the Basketball Jesus.]
• New York Knicks (2003-2008): I don’t know what can be said that hasn’t already been said. I’ll just refer you to Jeff Coplon’s article that says everything in its title “Absolutely, Positively the Worst Team in the History of Professional Sports”. Quick Cliff Notes style summary: Threw away two 1st round picks for Eddy Curry. Fired Larry Brown (his best move) and made himself coach (his worst move–on the court). Ordered his team to commit a hard foul against the Denver Nuggets resulting in a brawl. Despite having the highest paid team in the league and the pipe dream of landing LeBron James he continued to blow money/cap space on over-priced/under-performing players. “Reassigned” and forbidden to have any contact with the Knicks’ players. Charged in a sexual harassment lawsuit that led Madison Square Garden to pay $11.6 million to his accuser and offended multiple sponsors. Reportedly overdosed on Lunesta and was taken to the hospital, but afterwards tried to throw the entire thing on his 17 year-old daughter.

So, um yeah, good luck with that FIU.

If this were April 1st, we’d definitely be wondering about the veracity of this story, but both Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports and Andy Katz at ESPN are reporting that Mr. Congeniality, Isiah Thomas, may be close to accepting the head coaching job at Florida International University (apparently the school is located in Miami, which suddenly reveals a modicum of why to this story).  The former head coach, Sergio Rouco, was reassigned after a 55-94 record over five seasons. 

You may remember Mr. Thomas (not to be confused with the mercurial rising star Isaiah Thomas from the Washington Huskies) from his days as a player at Indiana (national champs in ‘81), or as a Detroit Piston (world champs in ‘89 and ‘90), or as a relatively successful Indiana Pacers coach, or his most recent disastrous stint as team president and coach for the New York Knicks.  If Thomas actually takes this coaching position, he’ll join other Sun Belt retreads John Brady (LSU to Arkansas St.) and Mike Jarvis (St. John’s to Florida Atlantic) as coaches with the uncanny ability to turn water to vomit in the blink of an eye.  Somewhere Stephen A. Smith, Bill Simmons and Will Leitch all began independently yet simultaneously typing in unison. 

The problem with Thomas in New York was his utter incompetence in the ability to successfully put a team together (well, that and the sexual assault thing).  He seemed to believe that having fifteen me-first guards on the roster was a healthy concoction, and the thought of him getting to craft and coach his own team of players in the combustible environment of Miami should break all kinds of blogosphere records throughout his tenure there. 

On its face, this job makes absolutely no sense unless Thomas is now importing packages through South Florida from Bolivia and he wants to keep a close eye on his product.  He has absolutely no college coaching experience whatsoever, and the truth is that he still could have gotten a bigger ‘name’ job had he heretofore shown any interest.  Additionally, why wouldn’t he wait for another NBA opening?  He may be damaged goods in many fans’ eyes, but that’s never stopped stupidity in the form an NBA GM before.  At least Thomas would still be in his comfort zone, though.  We can already envision Thomas trying to sell an unsuspecting mother of some 16-year old prodigy on the virtues of FIU Basketball, with his snakeskin shoes and 100-watt smile beaming across the room. 

Come to think of it, maybe this will make for a good fit after all. 

Fresh off his (and UConn’s) first loss in Final Four history (previous: 4-0 with two titles), Jim Calhoun today ended any further speculation as to his job status and stated unequivocally that he will be back for the 2009-10 season.  Given his advancing age and some recent (the Ken Krayeske salary flap) and pending (Nate Miles) embarrassments for the program, it would have made sense if Calhoun had decided to take his golden parachute and say to hell with the rest of it.  Instead, Calhoun will stick around at least one more year to chide, deride and lambaste rogue reporters who dare ask a question he doesn’t like (call it the Gillispie Method, but more crotchety).  From the AP report:

“It is my full intention to return for the 2009-10 season,” Calhoun said. “I look forward to coaching next season and to continuing as the head coach at Connecticut into the future. In many ways, the journey of this past season has made me realize how much I love coaching this game, how much I love my kids and how much I enjoy being at Connecticut.”

Not sure what to make of this decision.  The guy is a great coach, unquestionably, and we’re sure that he loves the process and routine of the act of coaching up young, talented kids to play the game of basketball.  But his team stands to lose quite a bit this season (Thabeet, Price, Adrien, Austrie) and although UConn won’t be completely rebuilding, it’s not a strong bet that the Huskies will be back competing for a F4 next year. 

Furthermore, and despite some UConn fans’ admonitions to the contrary, this Nate Miles thing is going to be investigated, whether he was a junior or senior or whatever, and regardless of the length and timing of some of these phone calls and text messages.   There’ll also be inquiries into possible contact with other players, including uber-frosh Ater Majok.  Our point is this – it’s not necessarily that probation is looming or even that UConn necessarily did anything wrong here – but you can rest assured that having the NCAA poking around your program is never a fun endeavor and it ultimately causes nothing but an incredible amount of timesuck and headaches for those in charge (i.e., Calhoun). 

So why would Calhoun want to subject himself to that next year?  All we can think is that he really likes coaching (and his $1.6M salary). 

Buzz: Josh Pastner to Take Memphis Job.  After striking out on several ‘big’ names, Memphis announced today that John Calipari’s top assistant coach, Josh Pastner, will take over the head job for the Tigers.  He’s only 31 years old, but he spent the previous five seasons prior to this one  as an assistant to Lute Olson at Arizona.  This is definitely a risk by Memphis in going with such a young, unproven commodity as Pastner, but the word is that he’s an aggressive recruiter, so we’ll see.

Buzz: Portland St.’s Ken Bone to Fill Vacated Wazzu Position.  Bone is willing to leave uber-cool Portland for interior Washington to coach in the Pac-10 at Wazzu.  He was successful at Portland St., having won the last two Big Sky Tournaments for NCAA appearances, and his roots are in the Pacific Northwest (12 yrs as head coach at Seattle Pacific and 3 yrs as an assistant at Washington). 

It wouldn’t be Arizona basketball without more drama, and today’s news that Xavier head coach Sean Miller is now reportedly taking the Wildcats job after having turned it down yesterday seems par for the course with this program lately.  In the end, despite all the coachspeak about “good situations” and “loving” where they currently are, it came down to the dollar bills.  In so doing, Miller successfully performed the Reverse Donovan with aplomb.  From Andy Katz’s fine report on the matter:

(Xavier AD) Bobinski headed back to Cincinnati to be in the office Monday because Miller was waffling. His concerns were well-founded: after sleeping on the offer from Arizona, Miller decided to take the job with the Wildcats at mid-day Monday, according to a Xavier official. [...] Miller and Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood met Sunday in Albuquerque, N.M. Miller asked to sleep on the offer. The Xavier official said that when Miller called back to Arizona on Monday, he was offered more money and the counteroffer was too good to pass up for the fifth-year Xavier coach. Miller hadn’t met with the team as of 2 p.m. ET Monday but was expected to do so later in the day.

Besides, despite the gutting of Arizona that is going to happen this offseason as Chase Budinger, Nic Wise and Jordan Hill all leave school, Miller has to know that he’ll be able to get far better recruits at Arizona than he was ever getting in SW Ohio.  The inroads and reputation that Lute Olson developed over a quarter-century on the playgrounds of SoCal alone is enough to get Miller in the door with many blue-chippers.  That… and the babes on campus in Tucson (again, no comparison with XU, see below).

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Buzz: Sean Miller Spurns Arizona.  Gary Parrish reports tonight that Xavier’s Sean Miller has spurned Arizona’s advances, which begs the question… what is wrong with this job?  First, Tim Floyd turns down the opportunity to go from a football school to a basketball school; now a high mid-major coach has turned down a chance to coach at one of the premier programs of the past quarter-century in a major conference.  What gives?  Word is now that Arizona is targeting Utah’s Jim Boylen.  Stay tuned…

Buzz: Arizona Now Targeting Xavier’s Sean Miller.  Various reports are indicating that Arizona has now moved on to Xavier’s Sean Miller as their primary target in their coaching search.  Miller would be a great hire for the Wildcats, who were spurned by USC’s Tim Floyd last week.  Arguably, he would be a better hire than Floyd would have been.