The Coaching Search of Diminishing Returns

So, what's the plan now? What has been the plan so far, for that matter? We got a tiny glimpse inside the process, in some stories and quotes over the past couple days, but nothing that sounds promising.

Unfortunately, time is ticking away. 6 days to go, before the spring signing period. Terrence Jones is going to wait a week longer, but time may be running out on signing him, or anybody else worthwhile, if a new coach isn't hired immediately.

It seems that the search has focused on a few names that were unlikely to come, in Dixon and Stevens. While little else has been confirmed, Kilkenny has admitted to discussions with those two. Bob Clark keeps throwing out Mike Anderson as a name, and while I'd love it to happen, he's more unrealstic than the previous two names. However, there are an awful lot of coaches that we haven't seemed to give a look to, for whatever reason.

My last post focused on Baylor's Scott Drew. He's gotten almost no attention, from day 1, but seemed like our best chance at a major conference coach, with a deep tourny run to his credit. I'm really baffled by the omission of him in this search.

The proximity to the spring signing period may now also be one more negative in the growing list of problems with this coaching search. We are the only Pac-10 school without a basketball commitment. We have, at minimum, 2 rides to give and that's assuming zero player turnover with a new coach being signed (which often is not an accurate assumption). If things stay as they are, in 2 years our new coach will lose 8 players from our huge sophomore class. These are all factors a new coach will consider, as he knows he's expected to come in and bring us success. With signing so close, will the new coach even have a realistic chance to fill our open spots (and any others that come open with player turnover) with players of the quality he will need to get the program headed in the right direction?

If Terrence Jones is one of those players, the answer is most certainly, yes. However time may be running out for him, if it hasn't already.

Factors like these may mean that coaches we could have landed a couple weeks ago, will be harder to sell on the job in the coming days and weeks. According to Kilkenny we are "not really" close to a hire at the moment.

Scott Drew, or Lon Kruger, would be our best bet to get coaches that have had success in a major conference. Both coaches are in good situations right now, and the dealys in this search are making our situation worse by the day. I'm not sure that either would leave, even given a raise, though I expect one or both may have if we'd gone at them awhile ago.

Billy Gillespie was in Beaverton yesterday, though it may have just been for the Nike Hoop Summit. A lot of fans don't want to deal with his baggage, but we may not have much choice at this point. The problem with getting a good coach at this stage, is that we need them much more than they need us. Gillespie is a very good coach that, due to his baggage, would need us as much, if not more, than we need him.

We have a couple ways we can go. Hire an unproven coach with no (known) baggage, or a proven coach with some blemishes. It would appear that hiring a proven coach with a sterling record and no issues, is out of the question for us.

Randy Bennett is still on the table, but I still really fail to get too excited about him. We may need to just bite the bullet and take him, at some point, but I just worry far too greatly about his recruiting. He relies on a connection with an Australian national team that I just don't know A) if it will last and B) how well it will translate to the Pac-10. Also, much like the other choices, believe it or not, I'm not entirely sure he'll even take the job at this point. We've drug it on too long, pushed too close to the signing period, and hindered our next coach's ability to be successful here.

PJ Carlesimo and Terry Porter keep getting mentioned. I'm completely against either one, though I suppose I'd rather have Porter, but just barely. Porter has zero college coaching experience. I don't mean head coaching experience, he has zero of any kind. Never been a college assistant, or anything. He quit playing in 2002, was an NBA assistant for only one year before taking a head coaching job. As an NBA coach, he has an under .500 record and was fired twice in only 2.5 seasons. Its a desperation hire, and we may be desperate, but I would rather take a flier on an unknown, or even assistant, from the college game than on Terry Poter.

Taking your time to get "the right" coach, rather than just any coach is a good thing...within reason. A coaching search isn't like every other job search out there and we have reached a point in which the longer it drags on the worse our coaching candidates are going to get.