(Now that Brian has talked about it) MBB Coaching Wishlists
I've refrained from posting a CC thread mid-season, but I feel like Brian offering comments on the necessity of it all warrants a layout of potential options.
If you were (ahem) a competent athletic director, whose agent would you be starting to nudge a bit? In my mind I think of a few names:
- Tommy Lloyd (Arizona): comes from the Mark Few coaching tree, has won 61 games his first two seasons as a head coach. Would be a really hard get given he's only been in Tuscon a brief time.
- Dusty May (FAU): took the Owls to the Final Four. What else needs be said? Probably every major program with a coaching change will be clamoring for him.
- Porter Moser (Oklahoma): has struggled a bit since leaving Loyola Chicago but has seemed to find his footing/system this past year. Oklahoma has lost coaches to the B10 in the past...
- Nate Oats (Alabama): SEC coach of the year, has history in the Detroit area (taught/coached at Romulus High). Has a pretty cushy salary at Alabama so may be tough to pry away.
Who is not on this list:
- Anyone above the age of 60 (flight/retirement risk in a few years)
- Anyone on Michigan's current staff (obviously)
- No recent Michigan coaches who are leading other programs (poor general track record)
January 31st, 2024 at 4:58 PM ^
Are Otzelbergers better than Blimpy Burgers?
January 31st, 2024 at 9:40 PM ^
I went to KenPom and sorted by defense. Then looked at coaches that we could potentially poach (not at a huge program or a longtime coach) and looked at the coach's history page.
Using this highly scientific method, Otzelberger was the name that stuck out.
The other was Shaka Smart but his tenure at Texas wasn't great.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:34 PM ^
Lamont Paris (South Carolina)
TJ Otzelberger (Iowa State)
Josh Schertz (Indiana State)
Darian DeVries (Drake)
January 31st, 2024 at 3:03 PM ^
Lamont would be interesting. I went to many Chattanooga Mocs games (still do) while he was HC and he did a heck of a job. Knows the B1G, too, since he was a Wisconsin assistant before getting the Chattanooga job.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:08 PM ^
I concur.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:36 PM ^
All in on Josh Schertz
January 31st, 2024 at 4:17 PM ^
Just looked this dude up. Absolutely would be in favor of him.
January 31st, 2024 at 4:43 PM ^
I'd add Shaka Smart to the list. He's seemed to have found his footing again at Marquette.
January 31st, 2024 at 8:27 PM ^
He grew up in Wisconsin. Madison to be exact. So he might want to be at Marquette for awhile. Just a guess, but it isn't necessarily a jump opportunity.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:35 PM ^
Legit have no idea. With the rate at which things are changing in the world of NCAA basketball, I couldn't even begin to predict who would be ideal.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:37 PM ^
The one thing that might help with Tommy Lloyd is that the University of Arizona has major major financial issues such that if you made him a good offer there's a good chance they would be unlikely to be able to match it.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:37 PM ^
Porter Moser is a good choice. Watched his team the other night and liked how they played. His Loyola years were obviously good.
Shaka Smart - it would be great to have a strong defense in the Big Ten.
Grant McCasland - Texas Tech - hard to pull him from the south though
Anthony Grant from Dayton
January 31st, 2024 at 4:06 PM ^
Shaka Smart???? HAHAHAHAHAHA good one
January 31st, 2024 at 4:44 PM ^
Shaka Smart may seem like a retread but the guy is only 46 years old and has done some good things at Marquette. Michigan wouldn't be nearly as stressful as Texas either.
January 31st, 2024 at 6:37 PM ^
He had one good tourney run at VCU but pretty much topped out as getting a tourney bid but not making it past the first round. Failed miserably at UT and is doing ok at Marquette.
His teams have won one NCAA tournament game since 2013. Not sure I’d put him on a short list for a power conference job at this point.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:39 PM ^
Patrick Beilien with Jim as associate head coach
January 31st, 2024 at 3:46 PM ^
Who is this Jim Beilien fellow? Does he know John Beilein?
January 31st, 2024 at 3:53 PM ^
No one said Jim Beilein. I assumed it was Jim Harbaugh. But it could be Jim Stapleton.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:51 PM ^
Is Patrick bringing the director of basketball operations from Niagara that he tried to bang?
January 31st, 2024 at 2:39 PM ^
1.) Fire Warde
2.) NIL-friendly and smart AD. A true visionary.
3.) Then look for a coach. You could hire Coach K, Larry Brown, and Phil Jackson to coach Michigan basketball, and somehow, this Athletic Department would handcuff them.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:41 PM ^
Can someone tell Brian how to use his website and turn the comments section on?
January 31st, 2024 at 2:59 PM ^
Perhaps Brian made a good choice on doing that? Just sayin'.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:04 PM ^
Brian wanted to talk about basketball.
Brian did not want US to talk about basketball.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:05 PM ^
Looks like some hosting/content manager issues over the last day or two. Maybe the weird "points are being added" and "no comment box" are related in some fashion?
January 31st, 2024 at 3:10 PM ^
No. He's done this before. Seth (or someone) has explained there's a checkbox.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:07 PM ^
I have a feeling Brian's post was just for the sole purpose of venting...
January 31st, 2024 at 3:24 PM ^
Should Brian have remembered to turn on the comments on his basketball article? Yes.
Could ChatGPT or - better still - any of us written an approximate facsimile of what the comments would be? Also yes.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:25 PM ^
I have some things to say dammit!
January 31st, 2024 at 4:08 PM ^
Can we hire ChatGPT as our new Athletic Director?
January 31st, 2024 at 4:19 PM ^
it's probably overqualified
January 31st, 2024 at 2:41 PM ^
It almost has to be a small school up-and-comer. I don't know why any coach from a big program would want to come deal with Michigan's transfer hurdles and underperforming NIL.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:42 PM ^
Chris Collins
January 31st, 2024 at 3:13 PM ^
He does have that "dawg" in him...
January 31st, 2024 at 2:43 PM ^
Isn't Nate Oats demonstrably scummy based on that minor best-player-gave-a-gun-to-a-murderer thing? I would rather have Warde be AD for life than have a scuzzbucket like that coaching on our our teams
January 31st, 2024 at 2:58 PM ^
I thought that was just one of a number of shady things he's done. I may not be remembering correctly, but my impression of him was that he was a slightly less shady version of Will Wade. Regardless, he would never go to any school that doesn't pay players Miami-style, i.e. Michigan would be the absolute last school he would ever go to...
January 31st, 2024 at 3:10 PM ^
I don’t remember why anymore but I felt like he gave off sketchy vibes back at Buffalo too. His time at Bama has only solidified that to me
January 31st, 2024 at 3:43 PM ^
Yeah, I am a big NO on Oates
January 31st, 2024 at 3:52 PM ^
Yeah, Nate Oats is 100% a nonstarter at Michigan.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:43 PM ^
Jay Wright? He beat us (when we were good) 2X.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:45 PM ^
Do the funniest thing possible and hire Tom Crean. He's probably not a better coach than Howard, but then MGoBlog can reuse THAT picture in every basketball article.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:48 PM ^
He'd be a better coach than Howard simply because he won't be threatening to kill other coaches. Also, I'm all for this.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:58 PM ^
No, but he did threaten assistant coach Jeff Meyer that one time telling him that he wrecked his program.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:00 PM ^
Warde should've tried that move to keep Harbaugh in town.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:01 PM ^
The time to hire Crean would have been before Harbaugh took the Chargers job, as an incentive to get him to stay. Now that he is gone I see no reason to bring Tom Crean here. But I would’ve gladly welcomed him as the basketball coach if it helped us keep Harbaugh.
January 31st, 2024 at 3:31 PM ^
Tom still sits at the little kids table at Harbaugh family events. Father Jack looks around the room and sees his two Hall of Fame coaching sons and then says, yes I do have an idiot son-in-law who has been fired from Indiana and Georgia for sucking as a coach.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:51 PM ^
I'm a Medhead (Niko Medved, Colorado State)
January 31st, 2024 at 2:56 PM ^
Now that Brian has talked about it, we need to start compiling a list of potential AD candidates.
January 31st, 2024 at 4:15 PM ^
Who’s the last full time AD anyone liked anyways? No will like Warde’s replacement after a few months and everyone will return to complaining about the same things.
January 31st, 2024 at 2:56 PM ^
Let's be 100% honest: College basketball is all about talent, and recruiting is all about money now. So we need the world's best fundraiser- they don't even need to know what a basketball is- and an excellent assistant coach who understands what they are doing.