Coaching Carousel Thread

Post #1 » by **Atlanta Hawk Fan** » Mon Apr 6, 2009 8:08 pm

I figured we could use this for discussions of coaching hires and rumors since they are hitting daily this time of year.

Sean Miller - Great hire for Arizona. The Wildcats would have been in a tough spot without landing a good candidate like Miller. Definitely good news for the Arizona program. Xavier has a good history of hires so it will be interesting to see where they turn next.

Mark Fox - Georgia. I don't know much about Fox. Hopefully he will prove to be a good hire but he has his work cut out for him if he can't get top Georgia players to go to UGA. The SEC East has a very good set of coaches at this point that he will be facing twice a year in Donovan, Calipari, Stallings, Pearl and Horn.

Please post your thoughts on any coaches moves or rumors of interest.

Polynice4Pippen · Post #2 » by **Polynice4Pippen** » Mon Apr 6, 2009 10:24 pm

Fox is a pretty solid recruiter. He was able to keep McDonald's All-American Luke Babbitt at home, an absolutely huge coup for Nevada. He kept Armon Johnson in the state as well beating out UNLV for both kids. So that should bode well for Fox's recruiting ability, he'll certainly need it going up against Calipari, Pearl and Donovan as well as Paul Hewitt and all of the ACC teams that recruit down there.

And ESPN is reporting that Josh Pastner is going to be named Cal's replacement at Memphis. They weren't going to get a proven guy so I like going with a young coach, although he has zero head coaching experience. But Pastner was really something of a coaching prodigy being part of the Arizona staff and reviewing game film with Lute and company while still playing back in the late 90's. And Pastner was right there with first Lute and then Calipari doing a lot of that great recruiting for both programs.

sunny · Post #3 » by **sunny** » Mon Apr 6, 2009 10:31 pm

this is the best day for Arizona basketball in years (except maybe selection sunday).

Miller is a great hire for us, Livengood finally redeemed himself.

In addition, pastner is an unbelievable coach; great hire for memphis! I'm happy to see him get the job he wanted. Also, it starts the arizona coaching tree, and if/when miller needs a successor, Pastner will be there ready to carry the torch.

Post #4 » by **jman3134** » Sat Apr 11, 2009 6:01 pm

sunny wrote:this is the best day for Arizona basketball in years (except maybe selection sunday).

Miller is a great hire for us, Livengood finally redeemed himself.

In addition, pastner is an unbelievable coach; great hire for memphis! I'm happy to see him get the job he wanted. Also, it starts the arizona coaching tree, and if/when miller needs a successor, Pastner will be there ready to carry the torch.

You mean every selection sunday that Arizona lucked out on in recent years....

BRENDANhAYWOODFAN · Post #5 » by **BRENDANhAYWOODFAN** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:44 am

Fox built a good program at Nevada. He is a good hire at Georgia over time but there are many questions. He is a West coast guy and just like Johnny Dawkins going West, he will need to learn to recruit in the Southeast. He can find talent though. JaVale McGee, Nick Fazekas, and Armon Johnson were all under the radar recruits, the first two being NBA draft picks. He has proven that he can consistently produce NBA talent including Ramon Sessions and Marcellus Kemp. Don't forget Luke Babbit. Georgia is a BCS school though so he will have his work more than cut out for him.

Alabama got a good coach in Anthony Grant and Ken Bone at Washington St. will also do well I believe. Grant seems to get the most out of his players and also recruits well. Bone is a good recruiter and overall coach but the Pac 10 is a big step up from the Big Sky.

Shaka Smart replaced Grant at VCU but I don't see him fitting in well. If I'm not mistaken, he is a very young inexperienced coach with no head coaching experience at the DI level.