A New Domino Emerges

Rumor has it that Kentucky head coach Billy Gillispie is on the hot seat, and that seat is incredibly hot. Kentucky is in the NIT this season and only managed to make the first round of the NCAA tournament last season. But Gillispie’s team’s performance is not the only reason the coach is in hot water. Gillispie’s ability to handle the media and the pressures of being the head coach at one of the most prestigious programs in the country is being called into question by many reporters that cover Kentucky basketball. Gillispie has done some strange things to warrant these criticisms such as get a commitment from an 8^th grader. Gillispie has managed to bring in top talent to Kentucky but it’s how he handles this talent that is getting him into trouble.

                So how does this affect Virginia? Well when Gillispie took the job in 2007 he was really Kentucky’s second choice. Ideally Kentucky would have landed Billy Donovan, head coach at Florida, who was coming off back to back national championships. Donovan however declined the offer and decided instead to build up the Florida program. If Gillispie is fired then you can bet that Kentucky will get Donovan on the horn within the minute, and this time Donovan may listen. Florida has also been struggling of late and its becoming clear that no matter how Donovan tries it will always be a football first school. If Donovan wants to coach at one of the premier basketball schools in the country and have a premier program than the jump to Kentucky makes sense. If that happens that sets up Anthony Grant for his return trip to Florida. It is becoming more and more obvious that for some reason Grant feels the SEC is a better basketball conference to coach in than the ACC. Grant will most likely jump all over the Florida job if it becomes available.

                So that leaves Virginia, Alabama, and Georgia as the big programs in need of coaches, and Sean Miller of Xavier, Jeff Capel of Oklahoma, and Tubby Smith of Minnesota, as the big names left. Smith will not be making a return to Georgia and probably won’t leave for Alabama either. If he goes anywhere it will be UVA but it appears he’s staying put. That leaves Sean Miller of Xavier and Jeff Capel of Oklahoma as candidates for the 3 jobs. While I think UVA is far and away the best job out there I also think Alabama will be able to shell out a lot of money to get who they want. This could turn into a disaster for UVA and make them pay much more than they expected to land one of those two coaches. And every time their teams advance that price goes up and up. In the end I have to believe that Capel will end up at UVA for the reasons stated in yesterday’s entry, but I don’t think it will be cheap to get him. If Grant ends up in Florida Capel shoots to the top of the Alabama and Georgia list of candidates, which means his market value shoots up too. Let’s hope for UVA’s sake that Gillispie keeps his job as he is now the domino at the head of the line.

 

Other Cantidate for the Georgia job since I think they’re going to lose out on Miller and Capel are Frank Haith of Miami, Baylor Coach Scott Drew, Dayton Coach Brian Gregory, and Siena Coach Fran McCaffery

A New Candidate

We’re going to get back to the coaching search today. In an interview with the Associated Press Tubby Smith said yesterday that he is extremely happy in Minnesota and that he had no intention of leaving the school. Now knowing coach speak that could just be a cover and the right thing to say while his agent secretly negotiates behind closed doors, but for the sake of this article we’ll assume that Smith will be a long shot. That leaves UVa with 3 top-flight coaching candidates left; Anthony Grant of VCU, Sean Miller of Xavier, and Jeff Capel of Oklahoma. Grant is listed as the favorite to get every available opening and because of his coaching experience at Florida under Billy Donovan, look for Grant to return to the SEC this season, especially if Billy Gillespe of Kentucky is fired and Donovan takes the Kentucky job.  That leaves it down to Sean Miller of Xavier and Jeff Capel of Oklahoma. There is another coaching rumor that Jamie Dixon of Pitt will be leaving to take the Arizona job if it is offered to him which would mean that Miller, a western Pennsylvania native, will be taking the Pittsburgh job. That leaves Jeff Capel as the top candidate for the UVA coaching job, and as I read into him I think he might be the best fit.

                Capel played at, brace yourselves fans, Duke, from 1993-1997. The 34 year old spent 4 years as head coach at VCU before taking the job at Oklahoma and was an assistant at VCU and ODU in the three years prior to that. Capel’s Father was the head coach at ODU during his time there. Capel is obviously an ACC boy through and through and UVA would most likely symbolize the pinnacle of his career, especially since Johnnie Dawkins appears to have the inside track for the Duke Job if Krzyzewski ever retires. If UVA could land Capel it would symbolize the best of both worlds between Smith and Grant. Capel would bring Grants youth and enthusiasm, as well as knowledge of the region and recruiting base, but also Smith’s proven track record.  Capel has Oklahoma as one of the top teams in the country in only his third season at the school. As a UVA fan I would take that deal in a second. While it would take a bit of cash to wrestle away from Oklahoma I think he would be well worth the investment.

                Now this is assuming the athletic department actually wants Capel and not Smith. If the athletic department wants Smith they did a horrendous job of pursuing him. Smith is now in a tough spot if he wants the job because he needs to pander to Minnesota in case the deal cannot be worked out. However if the athletic department does in fact want Capel and is using Smith to take the attention off Capel during the tournament so they can negotiate better than this is a brilliant move, but lets be honest those are rare here. The Wahoowatch approves of the 3 candidates mentioned in this article, but expect other candidates to emerge.

Coaching Cantidates: Tubby Smith

It appears right now that Smith is the leader in the clubhouse. His Minnesota Golden Gophers lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament yesterday but at least they were there. I’d expect Craig Littlepage to put in a call to his agent, or Tubby himself, sometime today. Smith definitely has the best history of any of the coaches on this list. His overall record is 429-170 and Smith won the 1998 National Championship, as well as 7 Conference Championships, when he coached the Kentucky Wildcats from 1997-2007. Smith was also the first African-American coach at the University of Georgia where he gave the Bulldogs their first back to back 20+ win seasons in school history in his only two years there. At his current stop in Minnesota, Smith has led the Golden Gophers to two 20 win seasons and signed a top 25 recruiting class for this season.

               The only drawback to Smith is the money it would take to hire such a high profile coach. Smith is currently the highest paid employee in the state of Minnesota at 1.15 million dollars in base salary. While that is not that much for a basketball coach the bonuses for winning a conference championship, making the NCAA tournament, winning the National Championship, etc. are much much higher than coach Leitao’s were. According to an article in The Hook yesterday they are almost ten times as much. One of the driving factors in Leitao’s removal was that the program would lose more money in empty seats and loss of donations than they would have to pay Leitao in a buyout. The decision the athletic department has to make is if they bring in Smith at this high salary, will he be able to fill JPJ and bring in enough revenue to cover it.

                If Tubby Smith is in fact brought in it symbolizes that Craig Littlepage and the rest of the Athletic department thinks that talent-wise this team is very close to having success. Smith is just the final piece of the puzzle, sort of like Phil Jackson was to the Bulls and Lakers. By bringing him in and paying his exorbitant salary the athletic department is putting tremendous pressure on a very young team to grow up and be successful now. While I think that most of them can rise to the occasion and that Smith is the right coach to lead that sort of team I am still not convinced that that is the proper direction to go with the program. While Smith is a very good coach he is also 57 years old and no one knows how much longer he will be coaching. At this point this looks like the right hire but down the road this may come back to bite Virginia. I’d appreciate at least a cup of coffee with Anthony Grant of VCU and Sean Miller of Xavier, and even Jay Wright of Villanova, who took over that program in almost an identical situation and made them into a powerhouse and the darlings of Philadelphia, before they sign on the dotted line with Smith. Virginia’s mistake with the hiring of coach leitao was that the process was too drawn out and they had to scramble to hire someone. The athletic departments desire to not repeat that scenario again may lead to too hasty a decision and end up getting UVA stuck again in a few years.

                Now that’s not to say I don’t want Tubby to come coach here, in fact I would LOVE to see him patrolling the bench, and I assume that when he retires there will be another great coach in waiting to succeed him, I just don’t want UVA to rush into this and end up missing out on an up and coming young coach who could be a great coach for the next 20 years. Just keep your options open Craig and you’ll do fine.

VCU and Minnesota were eliminated last night so expect interviews to start soon for Grant and Smith.

Coach Leitao Resigns

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 6^th. 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.