We hope that you had a great Easter.
It’s hard to put together coaching updates when news is so spotty. But, we’ve evolved our ‘coverage’ much more along the lines of commentating and analyzing what we hear than sharing “scoop” over the last week.
We want to re-affirm our caution regarding the discussion of some things that we hear. The NC State coaching search is now in a stage where the public speculation of some names could create a potentially negative impact on the search since many coaches “in play” cannot afford for word to leak of any contact with State (or any other job).
SFN
* Last week we mentioned that we had heard that some NC State “insiders” had been very complimentary of SFN’s coverage and conversation related to the coaching search. These people commented on SFN’s accuracy, discretion, and quality of conversation.
* This week, we heard that some folks at NC State had been critical of some of our criticism about Lee Fowler? We have to ask…what criticism about Lee Fowler? Shit, we were some of the first people to publicly put a stake in the ground in support of him last week. We certainly hope that people with these kind of reading comprehension skills don’t have too much influence on the search.
Recent Developments
* First, the news is quiet. Very quiet. Don’t read too much into this as this is not some master plan. The first phase of the search needed the involvement of more indirect tenticles throughout the NC State Community (former players, direct friends of Barnes and Calipari, etc) and therefore generated the opportunity for a whole lot more information. The search now seems to be largely concentrated in one man’s hands – Lee Fowler.
* Barring an unknown & unexpected event with some kind of “mystery candidate”, NC State’s coaching search has obviously entered a different phase where conversations are taking place with “Stage B” candidates.
* There seem to be two distinct sub-categories of candidates in “Stage B”: (1) seasoned coaches with some kind of name recognition (PJ Carlesimo, Mike Brey, Lon Kruger, etc) and (2) the younger set of coaches with high potential “upsides” (Billy Gillispie, Frank Haith, Gregg Marshall, etc)
* ^Unless a “mystery candidate” exists (which we don’t think so), the decision between the more known names and the riskier upstarts is where the first key decision lies. What strategic direction will NC State take? (For more on the “strategic direction” conversation, you can click here.)
* We believe that Lee Fowler’s ass is on the line with this hire and the pressure may be building more and more each day. Therefore, we can’t help but expect him to prefer (what he thinks) is the “safe” decision and lean more heavily towards a more established coach. This is why we think the surfacing of Lon Kruger’s name is so interesting.
* There are some obvious problems with the “seasoned coach” approach — any established coach comes with some blemishes. Mike Brey may be looking for an out at Notre Dame to re-set his clock somewhere else since the odds are that he will be fired this year if the Irish fail to make the NCAA Tournament. Lon Kruger is about seven years removed from any real college success. PJ Carlisemo hasn’t been around the college game for 12 years and has quite an abrasive personality.
* NC State’s current dilemma reminds us of the US political trend whereby Senators cannot get elected as President (since JFK). The problem is that they all have actual records against which an opponent can run. Governors, like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush do not have a record to haunt them. All that the electorate sees in the Governor is “upside” because of their lack of record on the issues. Lon Kruger & Mike Brey are the Senators. All of these other folks seem to be the Governors.
* Sources in three different conferences across America have indicated to SFN that Lee Fowler’s “shotgun approach” to the market may have hurt NC State’s reputation amongst coaches far worse than publicly missing on two of the best names in the profession. Evidently, Fowler (NC State) has made so many initial calls to named coaches that had no connection or reason to be interested in leaving their current position that he/State has presented ourselves as both disorganized and desperate. We’re not criticizing here. Just passing along what we’ve heard.
* We call a little bit of “BS” on the part of ^this about negatively impacting our search. We don’t think that Fowler’s lack of strategic direction has made a difference to anyone whom we had a legitimate shot to land. We are more distraught about the leadership issues that this news magnifies than we are the impact on State’s search.
* We would be severely disappointed if Fowler had not taken advantage of the last fourteen days (not to mention the couple of weeks before Sendek’s announcement that Fowler claimed to have knowledge of Sendek’s potential departure) to do his homework. Last week, some close to NC State claimed that this is not a problem and that Fowler was engaged in creating a contingency plans prior to Barnes & Calipari.
* Based on some ‘inquiry’ calls Fowler has made in recent days we can’t buy ^it. What has this guy been doing the last six years to not know more about potential candidates out there? What was he doing in the two weeks prior to Sendek’s departure when he knew of ASU’s interest in our coach? How could he have started the search so far behind when he had so long to prepare contigency plans? (See related)
* Frank Haith – We would have thought that Haith’s name would have generated more momentum in West Raleigh after the local and national media support that has been thrown behind Haith’s name the last couple of weeks. We believe more “unofficial” contacts have been made with Frank than are being reported. We hope that there is a reason for the tight-lipped nature of this, but we don’t have any reason to believe it.
* More on our thoughts of Haith’s candidacy can be found by clicking here; and more on a potential hurdle for Haith can be found by clicking here.
* Mike Brey – Notre Dame’s coach popped up this weekend, and we laughed at the irony since this was always a job that we thought Sendek would have jumped whenever the opportunity arose. The association of Brey’s name with the State job did not surprise us at all. Brey has always respected the NC State job very much and has kept his eye on the job during his transitions from Duke to Delaware and then to Notre Dame. The timing was always off by a year for him. Recent reports seem to indicate that there is no real interest between a mutual courtship. Because of Brey’s current job at Notre Dame, we expect that he had to tell Lee Fowler that he couldn’t spend time talking. If he wasn’t “the choice” then we had to move on.
* We’ve heard little to nothing about Gregg Marshall, Billy Gillispie and Steve Lavin over the last couple of days. The only thing out there is this piece in today’s SportsIllustrated.com discussing Gregg Marshall:
“To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any interest expressed from their end,” (Winthrop AD) Hickman said Monday. “That obviously would be a huge jump for Gregg, both financially and in terms of league recognition. If he had that opportunity, I think he would feel he would have to look at it.”
* Chris Lowery‘s name (link to biography) popped up in the News & Observer this morning and got some Wolfpackers talking today. We don’t really understand why. Didn’t we just go through an experiment with the youngest coach in college basketball? Where is Lowery’s true “fit” in Raleigh? If you want to hire an African American coach with only two years of head coaching experience, why not hire one with more overall experience, who is currently a Head Coach in the ACC with significant local recruiting ties, a great local reputation, and whose two years of head coaching performance showed immediate improvement in his program (Frank Haith) as opposed to two years of regression (like Lowery’s)?
* The more that this progresses, the more of a shot that Dereck Whittenburg has at the job. We LOVE Dereck, but have not thought that he has the necessary experience for the Wolfpack yet. But…why not hire Dereck as opposed to some of the names now randomly being discussed at this point?
* We will leave you with a fantastic quote from one of our favorite message board posters, kwolf68. The quote hits on quite a few topics with which we completely concur. We would have thought that kwolf68 was a member of our team with how much this fits our feelings:
I think and hope that Fowler is watching game tape of each of these coaches.
I am really tired about debating NCAA record, Final 4s, etc. A basketball man CAN watch a coach and figure out if he is a coach that can take a program places.
Watch his coaching…How does he react when his players do well, what does he do when the players totally suck or quit, how innovative is he, does he think outside the box, does he respond to another teams timeout with creative thinking, is he a leader, and can he inspire hope?
That coach is out there and he isn’t necessarily in Austin or Memphis. Fowler needs to find him. He could be Haith, Lowery, Kruger, etc., I don’t know, but I am not and never will be upset that Herb Sendek left this program, I am not looking back, and not going “what if” with him. I just wished he had left last year which would have likely put Bruce Pearl in Raleigh.
Our guy is out there. Maybe now that Fowler has missed on the “names” he can really find that diamond of a coach. I know nothing of Lowery, little of Kruger and the others. I don’t like Lavin, am cool on PJC, not sure about Haith, and Brey is interesting but again…not sold. Still, I am very happy we are looking ahead at a new coach though the search has been difficult-difficult because Fowler had to go for those named guys so he wasn’t chased down like Frankenstein. Now the real decision starts…Which one of these sleeper-prospects IS THE GUY???
