Jamie Dixon needn't even be in the "yeah, rights" section. Going from Pitt to Michigan is a step down. Pitt has a brand new arena, a rabid fan base, and is in one of the top two conferences (the other being the ACC) in the country.
I'm pretty sure Brian Ellerbee already gave Jamal Crawford a wedgie. I think you mean Joe...
Bruce Pearl IS sleeze. He seems universally disliked by the coaching fraternity, even the ones he doesn't bust for cheating.
What about Bzdelik and Ernie Kent?
Can we all agree that anyone that's been profiled today would be a step up from Amaker? I think so.
We don't want Kent. Despite taking the Oregon program to previously unseen heights, much of the fanbase would be happy to be rid of him. Without Phil Knight's backing, there isn't much there. Plus, I doubt he's leaving Oregon unless we're offering huge $.
Please. Please take Ed DeChellis. Please?
Lowery. Lowery. Lowery.
Look at Wisconsin and Ohio State. They found proven winners at smaller schools and it transferred to the bigger stage.
If Lowery can do it at Southern Illinois, he can do it at Michigan.
Travis Ford is a guy we should strongly consider.
Anyone know how Rudy T's health is? He is the same age as Montgomery. I know he stepped down from the Lakers for health reasons, but the NBA schedule is much more grueling than college. He doesn't have any college experience, but his 2 NBA rings (even in a Jordanless league) should hold some clout.
Is getting Tubby Smith anything close to being a possibility, or am I just dreaming?
Hypothetical: If you had to choose either Toommy Amaker or Bob Huggins to be Michigan's basketball coach for the next decade, who would you choose?
I'd have to go with Amaker. I don't even hesitate.
Um, I'm pretty sure if Beilien's system works in the Big East, it might be able to work in the big, bad Big Ten. He was a crazy Louisville run and a ridic Daniel Gibson 3 from potentially two straight Final Fours, all with players who don't seem to be doing a whole lot (anything?) in the NBA. Michigan would be lucky to have him.
About Tubby. Let's assume that UK does fire him. They would not do this unless they thought there was someone better on the coaching market. Right now, Michigan is widely considered to be the best job available in college basketball, so Kentucky would be choosing from the same pool of coaches that we are, right? I won't hesitate to admit that they are a far more attractive program to a prospective coach, but is there anybody available that hasn't been mentioned on this page that Kentucky would have a chance at and we wouldn't? So--if Tubby gets the boot, why would we take him when there are coaches out there that his old school thought could do a better job than he did?
Let's get Lowery.
gnrgoblue... ditto
Paul Hewitt? GT....stong candidate, imo.
Gonzaga guy?
I think a lot more coaches would make themselves available for Kentucky than for us. Guys like (but not neccessarily such as) Gillespie.
Lowery is intriguing - but keep in mind that he inherited a great SIU program from Matt Painter (now at Purdue). Still, he's obviously done well with it.
Gillispie isn't going anywhere but one of the top four jobs. Good contract, facilities, resume. If Smith leaves I think he's going to Kentucky before anyone has a chance to blink.
Hewitt and "Gonzaga guy" Mark Few are decent candidates for an up and coming program, but Michigan is honestly bigger than what they've shown IMO.
Was hoping you'd throw Majerus out there. The potential boom for the Ann Arbor economy, especially restaurants, would be worth it.
I like Lowery. Tubby Smith has a vaguely "Steve Mariucci to the Lions" kind of feel to it- like his presence alone is supposed to fix things here.
I can't believe I didn't think of this before: Why is nobody talking about Kevin Stallings (Vanderbilt)? He has done admirably at Vandy. Before Vandy, he was one of those hot mid-major coaches after leading Illinois State to the NCAA Tournament twice. Before that, he was an assistant under Roy Williams Kansas and Gene Keady at Purdue. He's from the Midwest. He'd certainly think of Michigan as a step up and wouldn't be too expensive.
What about Rudy T?
Under what circumstances would we see coaches who've experienced high degrees of success at the major conference level fail at Michigan? A legitimate pedigree should indicate that you're purchasing a known quantity that ought to translate into further wins in the future. As much as I'd like to see us work the mid-major candidate pool, the difference in conducting affairs means we should run through all of the Montgomery/Smith types, first, right? Or is that just common sense?
My thought was that the conditions of success at an established and well funded program might not prepare guys like Montgomery and Smith for starting over again. For example, I really don't think Lloyd would be successful if he had to start at Illinois and start over. His approach is based on an idea of continuity of the Michigan tradition and I imagine, in general, that would be an issue at play with similarly entrenched coaches. They bring in high quality talent and coach them fairly well.
Mid majors, on the other hand, don't typically have a talent advantage in conference or otherwise. Their primary advantage is their adaptability and coaching talent, specifically. So...what I'm wondering is, is there one model more likely to be successful than the other?
Lowery is intriguing - but keep in mind that he inherited a great SIU program from Matt Painter (now at Purdue). Still, he's obviously done well with it.
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Yeah and Matt Painter inherited the program from Bruce Weber.
My only thing is all this Bennet talk is pretty much ridiculous. If you think some kid sitting in Detroit or Flint gonna be serious about passing the ball 10 times before he's even allowed to think about shooting will seriousily give Michigan consideration, is pretty much foolish.
Find a coach who can win over the Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, and Grand Rapids coaches and talent and plays uptempo and you guys will be back. Lowery is one guy, Kent is another, so is Krueger...
calipari threw his name in the way oregon guy did. fyi.
colin brings up an outstanding point i never considered. i always thought that the "mid major" or "up&commers" were more of a risk. sure, they seem to outcoach their peers w/o an obvious talent advantage. BUT, in some cases, there are coaches who kind of get lucky- i'm thinking of the Miami OH player who got to the NBA. that coach certainly lucked out by having a guy who exploded out of nowhere to be good. and in ALL cases, they haven't shown the ability to go into major talent pools and get the best of the best recruits.
imo, basketball & football are apple and oranges, so colins converse analogy doesn't fit. plus, again imo, we need a guy who will walk in and immeadeately command respect from the U community and the recruiting circles. a guy who will be outgoing and paint the program in an exciting light. i think the name guys will be more of a know quantity in this respect. i think it's hard to argue against any part of Kruegers resume, save the nomadic behavior and Beileins resume. i think it's very easy to argue against any of those mid major guys.
finally, the $$$ issue. M will pay good money. not 3-7M, but surely 1.2-1.7M ish. while i don't expect Gillespie (no profile Brian?) or Crean to come anyway, they along with a few others (petino, calipari) will be the only few who are not considered due to money. the fact that 1)TA was let go w/ no off court issues and 2)a potential 1.5M for a new guy says to me that M is serious about hoops. the facility will come, but that is a more long term issue.
What would Beilein or Kruger have to gain in coming here? I would argue that West Virginia is a better situation to step into (or stay in) at the moment--recent tournament success, good facilities, big contract. And the Big East is as big a stage as the Big Ten these days. We have better uniforms and a less-ugly court, but that's about it. Maybe our recruiting ceiling is higher, but it's also painted black, with a nasty 25-year-old sound system hanging from it.
As for Kruger, his team is better, he's working with his son, he's old, and UNLV has nearly as much tradition as Michigan (good and bad). Seems to me we're looking at Montgomery, a possibly-fired Tubby, and the mid-major guys.
I like Theus, actually--here's a guy who wouldn't be caught dead in a turtleneck.
I don't think that Gillespie is going anywhere (even Kentucky) in the near future. A&M will shell out the money to keep him if they have to. Plus, why would a coach who is hugely popular in College Station defect to Kentucky who hypothetically just fired a coach as successful as Tubby Smith? Gillespie is a native Texan and coached at UTEP last, I just can't imagine him moving far away for potentially less money.
EDIT: Brain Fart. That should be Gillispie, not Gillespie. Sorry about that.
HEY! When did unemployment change mascots? I liked the old drunk wino mascot. An eagle hardly represents my image of unemployment.
On a more serious note, I doubt Hewitt would leave Tech for UM. He's pretty well paid, has a fairly large buy-out and the fan base is pretty happy with him despite somewhat inconsistant results (of course having CG and his stupid fucking equilibrium on the same campus helps with that I'm sure).
I'd say, outside of Montgomery or a fired Smith (and given how crazy UK fans are I wouldn't discount this), UM's best bet is to take a chance on a hot mid-major coach.
i've heard that there is more negative feelings about the M hoops program locally compared to nationally. people who have been coaching for many years remember what M was in the 70s, 80s, 90s. that potential is higher than any other school, save KU, UK, Ucla, UNC, duke, Uconn. 11th in all time FFs. while most 18 yr old recruits see NITs, most coaches see M as the sleeping giant. Beilein has reached the ceiling at WVU. M's potential blows that up. same at UNLV. it will be large buy outs that keep these guys from coming, nothing more, nothing less. i certainly hope the news leaks in the coming weeks re: visits by candidates.
You nailed it. Dan Wetzel made that same point today in his column:
"Usually the perception within the fan base is higher than the reality, like with football fans at Alabama who think they should go 12-0 every year," said Yahoo Sports columnist Dan Wetzel. "With Michigan basketball, it's the opposite. The perception in the fan base is, after so many years of the program having excuses made for it, the fans' view is lower than the reality college coaches put on the program. College coaches say that's a top 10 job."
I do not like Beilein because he likes to take in JC tranfers and he avg about 1 or 2 JC transfer a year to play for WVU. This part of a reason why WVU is very good.
i don't want to point people away from Mgoblog, but M&BDave has a great review too:
"Kruger could sell the theory of evolution to the Mississippi Board of Education if given the opportunity."
the quality of M blogs is outstanding.
You guys don't have a chance at Beilein. And your commenters are dead wrong. There are no JC tranfers playing any minutes. I can't even think of one on the team. Just checked. No JC players on the roster. And WVU will get to the final four long before Michigan. Good luck with your coaching search. Look in the mid-majors cause that's all you're going to get.
Greg Marshall is my vote. Given what he did at low-major Winthrop, imagine what he could build at Michigan. He didn't take the first job offered to him (Charleston) as he wanted to stick around with his guys and make a deep run in the NCAAs; unfortunately, Oregon was unconscious from three-point range yesterday and took Winthrop out of its game. He's had a number of years there, but he's young enough and energetic enough to turn the program around at Michigan.
UNLV has as much tradition as Michigan? Do people think "tradition" started in 1990? Sheesh. Bill Buntin must be rolling over in his grave.
With regards to Tubby Smith - he's not going anywhere. I live in Lexington and have been in grad school at UK for 6 years now and have some (admittedly low-level) contacts with the athletic department. The word on the street is that all of Barnhart (the AD)'s statements are posturing to try to get Tubby to shake up his coaching staff to improve recruiting. There are several reasons why Tubby will most certainly not be fired:
1) He has a massive buyout (in the neighborhood of $4 million), and the athletic department (and university as a whole) are in serious financial trouble due to overextended building campaigns ($30 million practice facility and new hospital complex) and state budget cuts.
2) Barnhart has shown remarkable patience with Rich Brooks despite the fact that fans were calling for his head for the first 3 years.
3) UK fans (at least the loud, vocal ones) are completely nuts. Among the sentiments that are being stated as fact are that a) UK football is somehow in better shape than UK basketball and b) UK is capable of hiring Billy Donovan at the drop of a hat. Barnhart knows that he is not going to be able to bring in the kind of name that will satify UK fans' massively inflated sense of the program's value (Donovan, Ben Howland, John Wooden, James Naismith).
4) The current administration is very sensitive to what public perception will be if they run their first black head coach out of town for having two "bad" seasons (bad in quotation marks because most schools would have killed for those two seasons). Part of the reason that the hardline (read "crazy") part of the fanbase hates Tubby is in fact because he is black (and the other part is because they hate EVERYBODY).
I do agree that he would be a phenomenal choice for Michigan if he does CHOOSE to leave UK (a possibility), but he won't be fired.
FWIW - can you imagine how much fun a Tubby Smith/Lloyd Carr staring contest would be?
"UNLV has as much tradition as Michigan? Do people think "tradition" started in 1990? Sheesh. Bill Buntin must be rolling over in his grave."
UNLV is at least in the conversation. Final Fours in 77, 87, 90, and 91. I'd give UM the "tradition" edge, but it's not like UNLV showed up like a comet in 90 and 91 and then fizzled out. This was easily a Top 15-20 program from the mid-70's to the early 90's.
Why does Chris Lowery get credit for performing well with a team built by someone else while Bruce Weber doesn't, especially when that aforementioned someone else was Bruce Weber? Matt Painter was only head coach at SIU for one year. Make no mistake, that was Weber's team and he still has strong links with SIU. Check the St. Louis Post-Dispatch archives over the last week if you'd like to know more. But, he probably would be the best choice if you can get him.
Michigan pursuing Tubby Smith reminds me of the Illinois delusion that they could entice Coach Krzkckscki away from Duke a couple years ago. It might happen, but monkeys might fly out of my, uh, you know.
When was the last time anyone had coached two different teams in the Big 10? Remember that Lon Kruger has coached at Illinois already.
As for Mike Montgomery, I love the Midwest, as I'm sure you do, but how are you going to get someone who has lived in California forever to move to Michigan for retirement?
Beilien, meh.
Oh, and you failed to note that Quin Snyder is available... :)
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