11/21/24
March 16, 2004
Big XII men's basketball cellar-dwellers Texas A&M need a new coach and are reportedly looking at party-animal Larry Eustachy. What to do when the coaching pool seems so shallow?
posted by Ufez Jones to basketball at 01:51 PM - 6 comments
A&M has got to be pretty desperate considering they went 0 - for the conference this year, including two losses to the wounded and damaged Baylor team. Granted, A&M's not a big basketball school, but I'm sure they'd at least like to have a semi-competitive team.
posted by Ufez Jones at 01:59 PM on March 16, 2004
20-1 against, garf? Cause I'll put up $5 to win $100 on this.
posted by wfrazerjr at 05:39 PM on March 16, 2004
College basketball coaching changes are an interesting phenomenon. It happens in the NFL and MLB somewhat, but hypothetically in the pros all jobs are close to the same cache. But in college, some programs are elite, some are on the cusp, some are desirable, some are stepping stones. All coaches desire to move to the elite. So as soon as a cream of the crop program opens (Carolina, Doherty), it gets filled with another elite (Kansas, Roy Williams), which gets filled by a slightly lower but still hot commodity (Illinois, Bill Self) and so on down the line. In Washington State, as soon as a coach has some modicum of success (Mark Few, Bob Bender, soon Lorenzo Romar) their name gets bandied around as a candidate for a "better" program. In college the domino is in full effect, and only the impatient AD will take a look at Eustachy.
posted by vito90 at 08:19 PM on March 16, 2004
I think I actually confused coaching scandals. Larry was guilty of partying with co-eds, and not of joining the office pool. What a joke, either way. The joke being the NCAA.
posted by garfield at 12:32 PM on March 17, 2004
In Washington State, as soon as a coach has some modicum of success (Mark Few, Bob Bender, soon Lorenzo Romar) their name gets bandied around as a candidate for a "better" program. That's how the University of Tulsa is as well, as they were stepping stones for Nolan Richardson (Arkansas), the aforementioned Self (Kansas via Illinois), and Tubby Smith (Kentucky via Georgia). But A&M is far from an elite program, and some of the names mentioned in the last article I linked to would be leaving smaller schools with better programs (UTEP). I don't think that'd happen as losing to all the Big XII schools would get you less positive exposure than taking a team like UTEP to the big dance. So A&M is stuck either taking a risk on a young up and comer (like Baylor did this past season) or taking a risk on a rather questionable controversial formerly successful coach who wants to re-establish is rep.
posted by Ufez Jones at 01:32 PM on March 17, 2004
20-1 he gets the job. any takers?