So you want to hire a mid-major hotshot to fix your basketball program …
By Chris Wright
Published:
Who doesn’t like new and different?
Certainly not college sports fans. Three things they love more than most: the backup quarterback, the 5-star recruit, and the thought that they have a chance to steal the next Billy Donovan from a low or mid-major program.
Billy the Kid was 29 and 2 years into his head coaching career, both at Marshall, when Florida hired him 1996. For decades, this is how it was done: Identify and grab the rising star. It started long before Donovan, but has has since become the poster boy. Bob Knight coached Army before he won national titles at Indiana. Coach K made the same leap, albeit to Duke. Even the great John Wooden, who won an unmatchable 10 NCAA championships, spent 2 years at Indiana State before becoming a legend at UCLA. (Maybe you missed that announcement on Twitter.)
That is the history and hope every time a coaching job opens: If you can’t hire a proven force in the business — Roy Williams or John Calipari or Rick Pitino — find the next Donovan, almost always at a lower level.
Many ADs gone that route when hiring, including many in the SEC. Should they? That’s an entirely different question.
Arkansas coach Mike Anderson, who was fired Wednesday, started at UAB. Mike White was at La. Tech for 4 years before replacing Donovan, the Gators obviously hoping the mid-major well had a bit more magic left in it. White’s hire was a success on every scale except the one his predecessor created. No matter. The natives are angry, wondering what’s taking so long to hang another banner.
Will Wade, who soon might be looking for a new job, jumped quickly from two mid-major spots to LSU. Sure, LSU won some games, but the FBI doesn’t like the way Wade went about it. Cuonzo Martin was at Missouri State for 3 years before Tennessee called. Nobody can argue that Tennessee isn’t in a better place now with Rick Barnes.
Bryce Drew was at his alma mater, Valpo, for 5 years before jumping to Vanderbilt. Now he, too, is looking for a job and running out of V options (Virginia and Villanova are taken).
Alabama, Arkansas Texas A&M, Vandy and almost assuredly LSU will have new coaches on the sideline next season. That’s the largest coaching swap this league has seen in some time.
The pressure and temptation will be to reach for a brash young prospect, like Wade or Martin or Drew, and hope it works. Thanks to the SEC’s TV deal, all four programs have enough money to make, say, Mark Few, one of the highest-paid college coaches in the game. But those programs likely don’t have the history to get somebody in his situation to leave.
So they’ll mine the mid-major market, convinced that their version of Shaka Smart will work.
Texas was so convinced Rick Barnes had plateaued that they fired him so they could win the Smart Sweepstakes. Four years later, that decision doesn’t look very, well, intelligent. Smart is 68-66 at Texas, with nary an NCAA Tournament victory to his credit.
There are cautionary tales written in every corner of the country. It’s completely understandable why mid-major coaches bolt at the first opportunity to land an 8-figure guarantee. It’s a bit more curious why ADs, armed with history and buyout checks, are so willing to believe this time will be different.
There aren’t nearly as many Billy Donovans as there are impostors with similar-looking small-school success based on an extremely small sample size.
Admittedly, everybody starts somewhere. Bruce Pearl looked like he might spend his career at the mid-major level before Tennessee hired him in 2006. That didn’t end well, but because no-nos, not Xs and Os. Auburn hired a proven, veteran head coach.
As did Mississippi State. This is Ben Howland’s third stop at a Power 5 program, but he spent 5 years at Northern Arizona before landing at his first.
Tom Crean didn’t jump into a Power 5 conference. Marquette has a proud history — and an NCAA championship banner — but he was there 9 years before Indiana hired him.
Barnes spent his first year as a head coach at George Mason before jumping to Providence and the Big East. But he was a 28-year vet before he arrived in Knoxville.
Kentucky is Calipari’s first Power 5 job, but he’s been in even bigger rodeos.
If there is a life lesson to be learned, perhaps it’s this: There’s nothing empirically wrong with hiring young. But experience and sustained success should matter, too.
Maybe that’s why the graybeards continue to rule not only the SEC but also the sport.
Managing Editor
A 30-time APSE award-winning editor with previous stints at the Miami Herald, The Indianapolis Star and News & Observer, Executive Editor Chris Wright oversees editorial operations for Saturday Down South.
