Initial names… Sort Of

Not a lot trickling out yet. Mostly strikethroughs on potential candidates. Indiana State's Josh Schertz got a predictable but frustrating NCAA snub and looks like he'll go off the board almost immediately to St. Louis. Everyone else on Michigan's (probable) list is in the tournament and will be doing everything possible to suppress any job talk until they're knocked out.

Sam Webb linked an article on TJ Otzelberger from 2021 that says his buyout is the inverse Jimbo: it's 100% of his remaining salary. He's signed a couple of extensions since and it's possible that language has changed but there's nothing indicating that. I would assume that it has not since everyone seems convinced Otzelberger's buyout is prohibitive for everyone. Also: you do not sign that contract with that provision if you are looking at other jobs.

The two names that seem to be most prominent in the very early rumor mill percolating through the internet: Dusty May and Niko Medved, but I'm not sure how much of that is guys like me saying "hey this might be a good idea" and how much is actually reliable insider information. The panicked internet rumor that Michigan was looking at Marquette (and former Beilein) assistant DeAndre Haynes has been repeatedly shot down. (No offense to Haynes; it's just that if Michigan doesn't hire a sitting college head coach people will justifiably freak out.)

[After THE JUMP: empty chairs and guys I'm mostly not high on]

Personnel matters

The inevitable: Dug peaces out. Tarris Reed and George Washington also hit the portal. Khani Rooths decommits.

Durral Brooks told Mark Skol that he'll "be waiting to hear who the next Coach is and go from there," which sounds relatively promising for retention. Brooks is an in-state guy who may be more inclined to wait through the process. I can't find anything on the extremely un-google-able "Hans" Christian Anderson.

Either way next year is going to be a serious Year Zero for whoever it is.

The Unmentioned

A few guys who folks asked me about in response to my initial list of candidates:

Anthony Grant, Dayton. Dayton is the premiere program in the A10 and has a history of making guys look good, whereupon they go somewhere else and are mediocre. Archie Miller parlayed four straight bids and an Elite Eight run into the Indiana job, where he never finished above .500 in the Big Ten and was out after four years. Brian Gregory jumped to Georgia Tech; zero bids in five years, fired; hired at USF; six years, no bids, no .500 conference records; fired. Oliver Purnell is sort of the exception as he had bids his final three years at Clemson, but then he jumped to DePaul and won a total of 14 conference games in five years.

If Grant was killing it at Dayton, okay, but this is his second* bid in seven years and aside from the Obi Toppin year this looks like baseline Dayton performance. That's not enough to offset an Amaker-esque six-years at Alabama with one bid, a nine-seed.

*[the first "bid" was going to be a one-seed when they cancelled the tourney.]

Bryce Drew, Grand Canyon. Similar boat. Grand Canyon is the kind of school that's spent enough money on SEO that their article titled "Is Grand Canyon University A Diploma Mill?" shows up high in Google searches.

My "Grand Canyon University Is Not A Diploma Mill" shirt is raising questions already answered by the shirt

It is not a real place. It also spends vastly more money than any other school in its conference in a Liberty-like bid for respect it'll never get. Drew's success there has to be taken in a similar context to Grant's at Dayton.

That said: Drew did have three top-70 teams at Valpo in his five years there and his successors have not come anywhere near that, and his GCU team this year is a paradigm-shifter. His previous two bids at GCU were mediocre teams that got through tier conference tournament; this one went 29-4, 17-3 in the league and got a 12-seed.

However, his Vanderbilt tenure was eerily Juwan-like. He took over for Kevin Stallings, who had good teams his final two years, and after a solid year 1 he drove Vandy straight into the center of the earth, going 6-12 and then 0-18 in his final two years before getting a third year ziggy. The eerie Juwan parallels include two lottery picks Drew recruited in his final year. Darius Garland got hurt; Simi Shittu was an abominable college player (89 ORTG, 27% usage).

I'd rather not be the school that attempts to figure out if Drew has learned from his Vandy debacle.

Jerome Tang, Kansas State. One of the more speculative names to pop up, Tang's in just his second year as a head coach. In his first outing he got KSU a three-seed and ran to the Elite Eight. This year they went 19-14 and 8-10 in the Big 12, getting an NIT bid. Tang suffered two major personnel losses before the season, losing returning starter Nae'Qwan Tomlin to a bar fight and transfer guard Ques Glover to injury. Tomlin transferred to Memphis midseason and put up a 133 ORTG on 19% usage, FWIW. His replacements at C for Kansas State were considerably less effective.

Two things: every single player in Tang's rotation in year one was a transfer, and his TO rates are hideous. In two years as a head coach they are #259 and #349. This would be a vibes-based hire. His name keeps popping up, though.

Randy Bennett, St Mary's. Bennett has been at St. Mary's for 22 years. If he was going to go, he would have gone.

Kyle Smith, Washington State. This one I probably should have included. Smith has significantly outperformed Washington State's baseline, earning their first bid since 2008, when Tony Bennett got them back-to-back protected seeds. 11-9, 11-9, 14-6 in the Pac 12 the past few years.

Offsetting that: he was very middling in six years at Columbia and three at San Francisco, getting nowhere close to a bid for  the large majority of that time. Also don't lend much credence to the "P5" aspect of his job, at least relative to Niko Medved. For the past few years the P12 and Mountain West have been close to equivalent conferences.