As most of you know Virginia head basketball coach Dave Leitao resigned yesterday bringing to end his 4 years at the helm of the Cavaliers. Leitao had the shortest tenure of any UVA coach since 1930. He resigned following the worst season for UVA basketball in the last 40 years with the Hoos finishing an abysmal 10-18. The athletic department made a tough but necessary decision to move on and will pay Leitao 2.1 million dollars to buy out the remainder of his contract.
This makes Virginia the first school to fire their head coach this offseason and gives them quite the leg up on the competition in the search for a new head coach. Craig Littlepage will most likely move quickly in order to prevent
the confusion that surrounded the hiring of Leitao 4 years ago. This process will most likely take a few weeks as some of the potential candidate’s teams are currently playing in the tournament but I would expect to hear news on the matter shortly after the tournament wraps up April 6th. I have a few names that I think would be good people to at least bring in and interview for the job. I’ll profile some of them further but here is the list I’ve made with a brief description so far.
Anthony Grant, Head Coach- Virginia Commonwealth University
Anthony Grant has been the up and coming coach for 3 years now after his VCU Rams upset Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 2007. Grant’s star point guard Eric Maynor is graduating this season so this seems to be the logical time to move on. With recruiting connections in Virginia already Grant seems to be the most logical choice to become Virginia’s next basketball coach, the problem is that he is also rumored to be the top candidate for the Georgia and Alabama jobs as well.
Marc Iavaroni, Former Head Coach-Memphis Grizzlies
Iavaroni played basketball here at UVA and was a graduate assistant on the Final Four teams of the early 80s. If Craig Littlepage feels that he wants to restore the tradition of the basketball program Iavaroni feels like an obvious choice. The question is whether or not Iavaroni, who has never coached in college, feels compelled to return to his alma mater.
Sean Miller, Head Coach-Xavier University
Miller is another young coach that has led his musketeers to the dance once again. The musketeers have won the A-10 the last 2 years in a row and made the elite 8 last season. Miller would definitely be a good coach if Grant is unavailable.
Jim Larranaga, Head Coach-George Mason University
This is a bit of a stretch but Jim Larranaga was an assistant at UVA from 1979 to 1986. Larranaga would also be the opposite of Coach Leitao when it came to PR as he is extremely open to the students at George Mason and is a true representation of the school. The one drawback is that Larranaga is 59 years old and UVA might want to look to a younger coach. Plus Larranaga seems to like GMU.
Other names include Oklahoma head coach Jeff Capel, Minnesota coach Tubby Smith, Miami Coach Frank Haith, and GW Coach Karl Hobbs.
If I had to put money on it I’d say the race is between Miller and Grant with Iavaroni as a dark horse. The other coaches are already at good schools or like where they are. I’ll be profiling candidates later this week and into next week.
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