2018 NCAA Coaching Carousel: Louisville Job Opens, Sean Miller and Pitt Dance Pt. 2, Danny Hurley Mulling Decision and More

Another blog that I plan on updating as we find out more. People want to know who is coaching where – at least I assume people want to know that. As we get serious updates, decisions or changes in coaching vacancies we’ll go through and update the blog with thoughts. I’ll try to keep this as accurate as possible, but I’m sure I’ll miss something at some point. 

Hires Announced

Georgia: In, Tom Crean, Out, Mark Fox
He is perfect at Georgia. He can recruit the DMV area still and then he should be able to build a pipeline with one of Georgia’s AAU programs or high school programs. That’s going to be key here. The other thing is Crean is actually strong at rebuilding programs. He was able to succeed at Marquette and he turned Indiana from the sanctions into the No. 1 overall seed. While you may rightfully question his X’s and O’s he is strong at rebuilding.

Memphis, In, Penny Hardaway, Out, Tubby Smith
Now, what makes the Hardaway hire so intriguing? Well, outside of his name and being a former player, Hardaway currently runs Team Penny in the Nike EYBL AAU circuit while also being the head coach at East High. One of the players he has is the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2019 – James Weisman. Kentucky has been the favorite for Wesiman, but now with Penny at Memphis, there’s a good chance Weisman ends up staying at home. That right there would be a massive step in the right direction. Also, he’ll draw ticket sales and get money back for the department. As Gary Parrish said before Memphis is likely to miss out on an $800,000 payday due to lack of attendance.

Ole Miss, In, Kermit Davis, Out Andy Kennedy
I’ll be honest, I thought Davis was a great hire until his press conference yesterday. Completely unprompted he said the basketball program will respect the flag and the anthem. Uh, what? This is the same school that uses a Rebel mascot, you know Confederate soldiers? This is the sort of comment that coaches will use against him 100% of the time in recruiting. This is a tough job to begin with, though there is help now with the new facilities. But, Davis needs to figure out a way to recruit Memphis, something I don’t know how well he’ll do now with Penny there.

Cal State Northridge: In, Mark Gottfried, Out Reggie Theus
Shocked to see Gottfried here? Yeah, same here. This is a big name though and despite his name popping up in reports linked to the FBI investigation the school was comfortable hiring him.

Pepperdine: In, Lorezno Romar, Out Marty Wilson
Another fairly big hire out in California. Romar actually coached Pepperdine from 1996-1999, leading them to one NIT bid before heading to St. Louis. He was able to rebuild quickly though going from 6 wins in year 1 to 19 wins in year 3.

Maine: In, Richard Barron, Out Bob Walsh

This was a weird move as Bob Walsh announced his own departure and within hours Barron was announced. What makes it weird? Barron was the women’s head coach at Maine before taking a year off for personal reasons.

Charlotte: In Ron Sanchez, Out Mark Price

A no-brainer here as Sanchez, the former Virginia assistant gets the gig. That means don’t be surprised to see Charlotte running the pack line defense here soon.

Missouri State: In Dana Ford, Out Paul Lusk
Ford is familiar with the league spending time as an assistant at Wichita State and Illinois State. At just 39 years old he has a real chance to be a star and expect him to be defense-first.

UTEP: In Rodney Terry, Out Tim Floyd

South Alabama: In Richie Riley, Out Matthew Graves

UC-Riverside: In David Patrick, Out Dennis Cutts

McNeese State: In Heath Schroyer, Out Dave Simmons

Open Jobs 

Pittsburgh: Out Kevin Stallings

Well this becomes more interesting. I was told over the weekend that Pittsburgh had some initial discussions with Ryan Odom at UMBC. Again, there wasn’t much there besides initial discussions, but this is big time. The important thing to remember here is Heather Lyke comes from a compliance background so if Pitt is to hire Miller there will be more than enough due diligence done. Now, this does make sense in the idea of him returning home and who knows what the hell is going on at Arizona, but this would be a shock to actually happen still. Pitt has also had discussions with Dan Hurley, who I’ll talk about in a little here.

UConn: Out Kevin Ollie

I’ll talk about this in the Danny Hurley section.

Colorado State: Out Larry Eusatchy
East Carolina: Out Jeff Lebo
Utah State: Out Tim Dureya
Evansville: Out Marty Simmons
San Diego: Out Lamont Smith
Eastern Kentucky: Out Dan McHale
Loyola (Maryland): Out G.G. Smith
Florida Atlantic: Out Michael Curry
Marist: Out Mike Maker
Bryant: Out Tim O’Shea
Western Carolina: Out Larry Hunter
High Point: Out Scott Cherry
Little Rock: Out Wes Flanigan
USC Upstate: Out Kyle Perry
Nicholls State: Out Richie Riley
Longwood: Out Jayson Gee
Incarnate Word: Out Ken Burmeister
Delaware State: Keith Walker

Just Opened
Louisville

No surprise that this opened up within 24 hours of Louisville losing in the NIT. David Padgett did a fine job given the circumstances, but it’s clear he wasn’t the long term answer here. I think Padgett should get a mid major job now and work his way back up the ranks.  The name to watch here is Chris Mack as many expect him to be thrown quite a bit of money and it makes sense from a logistical standpoint. His wife’s family is in Louisville, he knows the region well and he’s a well-respected coach.

Danny Hurley

Danny Hurley is currently the hottest commodity on the coaching market as he’s reportedly met with UConn, Pittsburgh and his current program URI. The reason why? Many expect he can recruit extremely well, especially in the NJ/NY area at either position. To me, UConn is the best job out of those three. UConn still has the name to go along with it, despite the recent failures and he can quickly turn that around to compete in the American. We also saw you can win in the American as UC was a 2 seed this year and Wichita State a 4 seed. The con there is we have no idea just how good of a job UConn is. This is the first coaching hire we’ve seen it go through since Calhoun. Pitt is an extremely tough job. You can’t just recruit Pennsylvania, since the best talent is on the east side of the state. That is currently being dominated by Villanova and some of the big names like Kentucky/Duke, who are coming in and recruiting Philly. You have to have a unique approach to recruit NJ/NY from Pitt now. Back in the Howland/Dixon days you could sell them on the Garden, playing close to home and in the northeast. Now, you are selling them on playing Duke/UNC. I also question how much Pitt can actually compete in the ACC, but it’s still the ACC. Then at URI, he has started to build something here. I’m not saying he can turn this into Gonzaga, but he can mimic it and Mark Few. He’s getting better and better recruits. He’s starting to establish URI as the flag bearer of the league. I’m wildly intrigued to see how this plays out.