Searchbits 1: Consider Starting Your Engines
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.
Mick Cronin
Kevin Cronin.
David Cronenberg
Brundlefly!
I can't fight that feelin' anymore.
if that's the way you want it, baby, then I don't want you around
Bart Cronut.
Cronin the Barbarian
you must not be watching ucla this year
bad bad bad bad bad
Mark Cronin
That would be a total power move. No idea if it would be a good idea or not, but a total power move.
God that would be a home run hire. This is an awful year to be coach hunting.
The pool seems awfully mediocre.
Completely disagree on Cronin. I've followed him at both UC and UCLA: lived in both places when he was there.
He's become increasingly angry, and threw his own players under the bus multiple times this past season. He had that Final Four run (from a First Four spot, of course) in March 2021 but besides that his teams have chronically under-achieved in the NCAA. His 2018 loss to Nevada while a #2 seed at UC (with a completely wide-open path to the Final Four, this was the Virginia/UMBC bracket!) was completely inexcusable and a flat-out collapse. Stylistically, his teams usually play rather ugly basketball. He doesn't have a history of being slimy like Pitino but he did come up under Pitino --- so the potential sliminess is there.
He's admittedly still young at 52 --- college hoops coaches skew rather old. But I'd let Louisville make the mistake of hiring Cronin (that is, if Louisville doesn't hire May first). U-M can do A LOT better than Cronin, IMO.
I would agree on Cronin. Lived in Cincy area while he was there and just was never impressed with him. I wouldn’t hate it if he was hired but he wouldn’t be my first choice.
Yeah, that UCLA team we lost to played gross basketball. Had Livers not been injured, we win that game.
Why would he leave a basketball blue blood for a football school?
Hume Cronyn
Former American League President and former Boston Red Sox shortstop Joe Cronin. Oh, wait…he’s dead.
Someone edited his Wikipedia page, he’s currently coaching the “Greater LA Adult League Team.” Hopefully his buyout isn’t too large
Oof. None of these names stand out.
I am worried that OSU going internal means we're in the pole position for Dusty May, which would be the equivalent of the MAC football coach that strikes gold only to fail once he moved up to the BIG.
In the meantime, I am going to live in a fantasy world that Warde is locking up a big name that's going to pleasantly surprise us all (and no, that doesn't include Medved).
I think that's a bit unfair to May and Nedved. Those are talented coaches who have done well at places that don't always enjoy success. This isn't taking a flyer on one-year wonders as much as pulling a guy with some track record of success as an HC.
No truly elite basketball HC is going to want to step into a bad team that is always going to play second fiddle to football at UM. Beilein coming to UM was very much him going from a lower-tier BE team to a B1G program with upward mobility. Hell, WVU had missed the NCAA tournament the year UM hired him.
Is it fair to call him Nedved?
J/K
I think it's fair to question if May is a one-year wonder. Had four years as a .500 coach in CUSA before last year's epic run. That was an incredible year, but they returned everybody this year, and the season has been a disappointment. They're probably a 2OT win v. Arizona from missing the tournament after being preseason Top 10.
My counterpoint is that going from CUSA to AAC is a jump competitively; per KenPom the AAC is closer to the MVC while CUSA is closer to the Big West/WAC. I'm not saying he's a sure-fire hit by any means and I'd be happy with Medved but even a "down" year for FAU sits them at 41 per KenPom while CSU is 38th.
Also, MSU was a top-4 team to start the year and have absolutely no business being a 9 seed so I think this year showed there were quite a few flaws with the ranking systems.
I sure wish someone could name a "big name". I personally can't really think of any. Sure hope 5 yrs from now we aren't look back saying "geesh, that 8 win season doesn't look so bad".
Calipari would move the needle. You may not like where he puts it exactly, but he would certainly move the needle.
We UM have negative 8 wins in that scenario? Because i can't imagine we look back fondly in perhaps the worst UM season ever.
I think Louisville is going for May, so don't worry.
I wonder how much stock ADs are going to put into what May does this tournament. If he immediately loses in the first round, do they back off?
If your assessment of a coach depends entirely on the result of a single game, you're doing it wrong.
Louisville is the leader to get May. May would be a very fine hire. Don’t get the May hate. FAU went up a conference and had a couple of injuries this year.
I have never watched an FAU game except in the tournament so what do I know. Sports media says FAU plays NO defense. If true, don’t want May.
Does a truly ambitious coach come here under current NIL and transfer/admissions conditions? If a coach demands too much--too much change, real promises of willingness--he may not get the job. If he doesn't, or enters the scene naively, we may have more of the same. Incrementally better? What are people willing to put up with? Real questions whether any coach can succeed in the way Beilein or early Juwan did under current conditions--pretty obviously.
Is it me - or - does it seem like there are zero good coaches out there these days? Especially young ones. I don't know if there is a single coach in college football or basketball under 50 that you'd be like: that guy is going to win a championship one day. It's rough out there.
To be fair, Dan Hurley won the title last year at 50 with UConn and Dusty May is 47 and got FAU to the final four.
I agree there aren't a ton of younger coaches that pop but I feel like that's also just a bit of timing; guys tend to win more as they get more established and so we don't necessarily remember how we felt about them when they were younger. Like, I think of Tom Izzo as an old troll but he won his title when he was 46.
The best coaches come up through the lower ranks. It's not like Football where top teams grab other high D-1 coaches.
Danny Hurley was at Wagner and Rhode Island over a decade before Uconn.
Jay Wright coached at Hofstra for nearly a decade before hired at Villanova.
Bill Self 7 years at Oral Roberts and Tulsa before Illinois.
Devries, Abdur-Rahim, Medved, etc. could all be the next Hurley, Wright, Self. These guys have all proved they can build winning programs.
Part of this is also that Michigan basketball is not Michigan football. It's a very good program to coach at, but it's certainly not in the upper echelon. If this was Duke looking around for a new coach, some bigger, more established names would be possibilities.
Lots of good coaches, but they have all recently shifted to bigger schools and signed large contracts. They need to just take their shot and hope they end up with a John Beilien type hire. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Careful, Sherrone Moore might be lurking.
Even easier: Kirby Smart's only 48. I assume the football part was a mistake because it doesn't make any sense.
I suspect this is a result of having 350+ DI programs. You can get a HC job at 30 in hoops, but it'll be at SW Conneticuit St. Now, you can have that success and have a quick turn around, but that will get you to like, the MAC or the MAAC. Now, from there you can advance to an low level P5 like GT or PSU and THEN you can get to a top 30 program. But that takes like 15 years of pretty sustained success across at least 2, likely 3 or even 4 programs. But UConn, KU, UK, etc won't take a 35 y/o guy just b/c get turned SW Conneticuit St from 5-25 to 25-5 in 4-5 years.
In football you can go from GA to position coach to coordinator and then there are 125 programs so to HC so by age 35 right to like UBuffalo or Nevada for 5-6 years and by 40-45 you're a candidate for almost any program.
Haven’t thought about this for more than a second, but Dan Lanning and JeddFisch say hello.
How about Lamont Paris who is 49 years old and just won SEC Coach of the Year? He's got USC ranked #16 at the end of the season. They were picked last in the SEC before the season, yet made the SEC finals and are now a 6 seed in the tourney.
He's from Findlay, OH and coached under Bo Ryan for several years, then coached Chattanooga for 5 years, taking them from a doormat to the NCAA tournament. Just in his 2nd year at South Carolina, he is someone that I would want to meet.
On the contrary, I think it's a young guy with a vision that we want. Now--if ever--would be the time. There's going to have to be a patience with a rebuild, whether fans like it or not. The institutional hurdles, inside and outside the program, may be too big to get over, though. And you need a guy with the stones to holler bloody murder if he's not getting what he needs; Juwan made some snarky comments, but may have been too polite about it.
Based on nothing but speculation I suspect that Warde is going to hire May or Medved, and I think either one would take the job for the opportunity to coach at Michigan as well as for a big raise over their current salary.
One thing that I am confident in: it's basically a dice roll as to whether or not they succeed.
I would feel a lot better about Medved than May.
If thats the case I hope we get Medved. May has the higher high but he also has little track record. Is he a program builder or did he just strike gold with this current roster iteration? Medved has a much more clear program building track record at Furman & CSU. I worry May is like Andy Enfield or any other coach who got hot one season. Enfield has not been bad, but he's pretty clearly not an elite guy either. I worry that's who May is (or worse)
I think you want Dusty May. Has midwest ties, etc.
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