HOT RECRUITING INFORMATION FOR MAY 2003

Thursday, May 1, 2003

There have been 38 Division I college coaching openings already this year, but, as things stand now only four of those jobs are still open, as Fordham, North Carolina A&T, St. Bonaventure, and William & Mary have yet to be filled.  The smart money seems to be on former Louisville assistant coach Jerry Eaves getting the North Carolina A&T job, Notre Dame assistant coach Anthony Solomon or Seton Hall assistant coach Brian Nash getting the St. Bonaventure job, Boston University head coach Dennis Wolff or Maryland assistant coach Jimmy Pastos getting the Fordham job, and William & Mary assistant coach Pat Skurry replacing Rick Boyages as the head coach of the Tribe.  Of the 34 jobs that have already been filled, 13 of them have been filled by somebody who is moving up or making a lateral head coaching move, as Kansas' Roy Williams moved to North Carolina, Illinois' Bill Self moved to Kansas, Pittsburgh's Ben Howland moved to UCLA, Southern Illinois' Bruce Weber moved to Illinois, Dayton's Oliver Purnell moved to Clemson, East Tennessee State's Ed DeChellis moved to Penn State, South Florida's Seth Greenberg moved to Virginia Tech, Western Kentucky's Dennis Felton moved to Georgia, Arkansas-Little Rock's Porter Moser moved to Illinois State, Western Michigan's Robert McCullum moved to South Florida, Murray State's Tevester Anderson moved to Jackson State, South Carolina State's Cy Alexander moved to Tennessee State, and Central State's Michael Grant moved to Southern University.  Five more jobs have been filled by a head coach who has been out of coaching, as former Wisconsin head coach Dick Bennett took over at Washington State, former UAB head coach Murry Bartow took over at East Tennessee State, Texas Christian head coach Billy Tubbs took over at Lamar, former Iowa head coach Dr. Tom Davis took over at Drake, and former George Mason head coach Ernie Nestor tookover at Elon College.   That leaves 16 jobs that have been filled by assistant coaches, as Ohio State's Paul Biancardi took over at Wright State, Louisville's Mick Cronin took over at Murray State, Michigan State's Brian Gregory took over at Dayton,  UNLV's Derek Thomas took over at Western Illinois, Marquette's Darrin Horn took over at Western Kentucky, Michigan State's Mark Garland took over at Cleveland State, Villanova's Joe Jones took over at Columbia, Virginia Commonwealth assistant coaches Ben Betts took over at South Carolina State, Kansas State's Robbie Laing took over at Campbell, Pittsburgh's Jamie Dixion moved up to replace Ben Howland, Southern Illinois' Matt Painter moved up to replace Bruce Weber, Western Illinois' Steve Hawkins moved up to replace Robert McCullum, Arkansas-Little Rock's Steve Shields moved up to replace Porter Moser, Georgia State's Michael Perry moved up to replace Lefty Driesell, Chicago State's Kevin Jones moved up to replace Bo Ellis, and Milan Brown replaced the Jim Phelan, who is retiring while he still ranks #3 on the all-time win list in college basketball, at Mt. St. Mary's.  That's in contrast to a year ago when 19 of the 42 head coaching jobs that were open were filled by assistant coaches.  We also were pleased to see that three of our top five-ranked assistants (Biancardi, Cronin, and Gregory), four of top 10-ranked assistants (Biancardi, Cronin, Gregory, and Dixon), and six of our top 40-ranked assistants (Biancardi, Cronin, Gregory, Thomas, and Horn) got head coaching jobs.  It also looks like our top two-ranked assistant coaches at the mid-to-low Division level (George Mason's Mike Gillian and William & Mary's Pat Scurry) are both on the verge of landing head coaching jobs.  Gillian is expected to land the job at Longwood College, which currently is in the process of making the transition to Division I, and Scurry, as we mentioned earlier, is just waiting for the administration at William & Mary to make the obvious move and hire him as the head coach.  In both cases we think it will be a great hire!   Remember, Gillian and Scurry both recruit like they're at the high major level in terms of the way they get after it and always sign players that are better than their league.  And Gillian may not be the only assistant coach at George Mason that Patriots head coach Jim Larranaga has to replace this spring.  Did you know that Bill Courtney, who promises to be the next in a long line of assistants to have worked for Larranaga, could be in line to replace Pastos, if he gets the Fordham job, at Maryland, or Solomon, if he gets the St. Bonaventure job, at Notre Dame?  We also expect former UT-Chattanooga head coach Henry Dickerson, who had a 73-73 record and got 14 of his players to graduate during five years at the helm of the Mocs, to get back into coaching this spring.  As a matter of fact, we've heard Dickerson's name mentioned as a possible candidate for a number of assistant coaching positions at places like Penn State, East Tennessee State, Virginia Tech, William & Mary, and the College of Charleston.

The coaching merry-go-round is starting to heat up again, as earlier this week Southern Illinois head coach Bruce Weber got the Illinois job, Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins has turned down the St. Bonaventure job, and it only appears to be a matter of time before Larry Eustacy is out at Iowa State.  Eustachy's admission about being an alcoholic and photographs of him partying with college students and kissing young women in Columbia, MO alone aren't enough to get anybody fired.   However, when you add up all the other stuff that has happened during the last year, like Cyclones player Jared Homan being arrested for public intoxication and Cyclones asssistant coach Randy Brown being charged with possession of child pornography and obstruction of justice in March; Cyclones player Clint Varley being arrested for drunk driving in February; Chris Alexander, who was a junior college transfer, being arrested for assault in October; and Cyclones player Omar Bynum being arrested for driving under the influence last July; suddenly we're talking about both a trend and a lack of control over the program.  Maybe Iowa State athletic director Bruce Van De Velde, who Eustacy helped get the job in the first place, would be more willing to weather the storm, if Eustachy's record wasn't 29-33 overall and only 9-23 in the Big-12 Conference during the last two years.  This is in sharp contrast to the 72-26 record Eustachy posted during his first three years at Iowa State and, as a result, Van De Velde has urged the school to fire Eustachy, who, as of yesterday at 11:30 AM, has five days to appeal to the president's office.  Obviously all this is too bad, because Euctachy is an outstanding coach, as is evident by the fact that he is ranked #23 on our list of the top head coaches in nation and was one of the leading candidates for National Coach-of-the-Year honors three years ago when the Cyclones went 32-5 and lost to Michigan State in the Regional Finals.  Eustachy also has assembled one of the best coaching staff's in the business with former San Jose State head coach Steve Barnes and former Long Beach State head coach Wayne Morgan as his top two assistants.  But, unless Eustacy can pull a rabbit out of his hat, it appears to be only a matter of time before Iowa State will be searching for a new head basketball coach.  And the three most likley candidates for the job should be former Iowa State head coach Tim Floyd, Creighton head coach Dana Altman, and Wyoming head coach Steve McClain.  Floyd's and Altman's ties are obvious, but did you know that McClain is originally from the state of Iowa?  And, if McClain gets the job, Cowboys assistant coach Joe Dooley, who is ranked #20 on our list of the top assistant coaches, would be the ideal replacement at Wyoming.  Remember, Dooley already has head coaching experience dating back to his days at East Carolina.  Hopkins was the obvious candidate for St. Bonaventure all along, but, either the money wasn't right or he feels like he doesn't need to take the job in order to become the heir apparent to Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim, who will probably retire in another five-to-10 years.  Remember, Syracuse has a history of hiring from within, as is evident by the fact that in the spring of 1976 when Orangeman head coach Roy Danforth left to take a similar position at Tulane, Boeheim, who had been a player at Syracuse in the 60's and an assistant coach at Syracuse from 1969 to 1976, took over as the head coach of the Orangemen.  And Hopkins, who is widely regarded as one of the top up-and-coming assistant coaches in the business, has taken a similar career path, as he played at Syracuse from 1989 to 1993 and has been an assistant coach at Syracuse since 1995.  So suddenly the question becomes does St. Bonaventure hire Seton Hall assistant coach Brian Nash or Notre Dame assistant coach Anthony Solomon?  Remember, St. Bonaventure is a tough job and regardless of which direction they decide to go, it will be very important for the new head coach to hire somebody with strong recruiting ties in the Northeast, Midwest, and Canada.  Somebody like Norfolk State assistant coach Daryl Sharp, who is one of the most astute and hardest working assistant coaches in the business today.  Did you know that Sharp, who previously was the director of basketball operations at the University of Louisville, was largely responsible for the Cardinals landing Reece Gaines and he also could have gotten former Louisville head coach Denny Crum several other players, like Boston College point guard Troy Bell (Sharp lived in Minneapolis, MN prior to moving to Louisville) and Syracuse Hakim Warrick (Sharp is originally from Philadelphia, PA) without ever have been on the road?   However, Crum didn't want to bring in two freshman guards in the same recruiting class and he simply dropped the ball on following up early on Warrick.  Sharp also has strong ties in Canada, as is evident by the fact that he is close to Ro Russell of Grass Roots Basketball Canada and Norfolk State recently landed 6'7 Kevin Francis from Toronto (Scarborough) ON.  Weber wasn't the Fighting Illini's first choice for the job, but he may turn out to be the ideal person to replace Bill Self, who recently replaced Roy Williams at Kansas after Williams took the North Carolina job.  Not only is Weber a straight-up guy and an excellent basketball coach, but he's used to knocking heads with the high profile schools in college basketball when it comes to recruiting the top players in the state of Illinois and in the city of Chicago dating back to his days at Purdue, where he spent 18 years as an assistant coach.  Weber also did extremely well as the head coach at Southern Illinois, where in five years he had a 103-54 record, which was highlighted by a Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament a year ago.  Ironically, Matt Painter, who was Weber's top assistant coach at Southern Illinois, as well as a player that Weber recruited to Purdue and sleeper in high school who was first discovered by the HOOP SCOOP, has once again followed in Weber's footsteps.  No, Painter is not joining Weber at Illinois.  Instead, Painter has been named as the new head coach of the Salukis.  However, we don't see that as much of a disadvantage for Weber who already has hit the recruiting trail running.   As a matter of fact, even before Weber got the job, he was in Houston, TX on Saturday and Sunday at the Kingwood Classic and, you can bet, that he was already focusing on 6'6 Jr Shaun Livingston from Peoria (Central) IL, who is ranked #4 nationally in the junior class by the HOOP SCOOP and was believed to be a near lock for the Fighting Illini before the previous regime left.  However, the most important guy on the staff in terms of helping Illinois land Livingston had already been retained by the university before Weber had even interviewed for the job.  We're talking about Wayne McClain, who not only is the father of former Illinois player Sergio McClain, but also is a former legendary high school coach with several state championships on his résumé dating back to his days at Peoria (Manual) IL.  A bigger challenge might be convincing 6'9 Charlie Villanueva from Blairstown (Blair Academy) NJ to honor the commitment he made to the Fighting Illini last fall.  If you will recall, Villanueva has already entired his name into the NBA Draft, but, if he doesn't sign with an agent and decides to return to college basketball, he may decide to follow Bill Self and his staff to Kansas or pick a school, like Connecticut, which is closer to home, or even go to UCLA or Indiana.