Kentucky Gets First Rejection

General NCS Basketball103

Based on the standard the media last year during the NC State Coaching search, Kentucky has now been turned down by its first ‘candidate’ for its open coaching position.

Pitino Says No

Pitino said Monday that while he enjoyed his eight years with the Wildcats, he’s happy coaching Louisville and wouldn’t consider returning to the school he led to the national championship in 1996.

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General NCS Basketball

103 Responses to Kentucky Gets First Rejection

  1. LRM 03/27/2007 at 9:09 AM #

    RedTerror,
    At Ky, thee would exist the potential for Ashley and Erin (former Gator dance teamer) to be in the same building at the same time. The perfect storm.

  2. Dan 03/27/2007 at 9:13 AM #

    ^ Catfight….

  3. mex367 03/27/2007 at 9:14 AM #

    Larry Brown turned out to be a pretty good NBA coach

  4. Mr O 03/27/2007 at 9:20 AM #

    Rochester: I remember arguing with someone early in the year about playing time for freshman. Dan Werner was used as an example of a coach playing freshman. In the cupcake portion of the schedule he averaged something like 12 minutes.

    In SEC play, he averaged 5.8 minutes per game. Werner was 2-16 overall and 0-10 from the three point line in conference play.

  5. Mr O 03/27/2007 at 9:21 AM #

    Sure, Pitino should count as a rejection. Every coach who mentioned our job was counted as a rejection.

  6. noah 03/27/2007 at 9:23 AM #

    “Has a college basketball coach ever successfully transitioned to the NBA??”

    Jack Ramsay. He did very well at St. Joe’s in the 50s and 60s and then did very well in the NBA. Won a title in Portland, I believe.

    Hubie Brown was an assistant in college (at Dook, I think).

    Dick Motta did well at Weber State before doing well with the Bulls, Bullets and Mavs.

    Chuck Daly was a very good coach at both Penn and BC. In fact, Penn was in the East Regional finals a couple of years under Daly.

    Cotton Fitzsimmons did well at K-State.

    Bob Hill, the coach of the Supersonics, was the coach BEFORE Whitt at Fordham. But he didn’t do well there.

  7. TNCSU 03/27/2007 at 9:23 AM #

    http://www.hoop-rap.com/news/newsview.php?getstory=985

    Javi looks like he’s still doing some great things down in Florida. Go Pack!

  8. Dan 03/27/2007 at 9:28 AM #

    “Bob Hill, the coach of the Supersonics, was the coach BEFORE Whitt at Fordham. But he didn’t do well there.”

    Bob Hill sucked at Fordham. He is notorious over on the fordhamfans.com site. If anyone attempts to type his name into the forums, the site automatically replaces it with “The Bad Coach”. Hilarious.

  9. Mr O 03/27/2007 at 9:34 AM #

    For the season, here were the averages of Fla’s freshman in SEC play(all games included):

    Werner 5.8 minutes(9.1)
    Speights 3.6 minutes(5.7)
    Powell 2.8 minutes(4.0)
    Mitchell 2.6 minutes(6.2)

    Also, this was on one of the best team’s in the country with large margins of victory so that Donovan could more easily afford to play his freshmen than other coaches.

  10. noah 03/27/2007 at 9:34 AM #

    Didn’t get lose every game for two years straight? Or something to those affects?

    I remember when Whitt took over, everyone knew it would be a steep climb back.

  11. choppack1 03/27/2007 at 9:37 AM #

    Thanks Noah – That’s good info…As for Larry Brown, he coached Pros before he went to Kansas – so it’s not exactly the same.

    I know in the most recent history – Calipari, Tim Floyd, Mike Montgomery, Rick Pitino, Leonard Hamilton, Kruger…you saw successful college coaches go to the NBA to take HC jobs and fail. In recent history, I can’t think of any who have successfully transitioned.

  12. Rochester 03/27/2007 at 10:03 AM #

    I’d love to get Werner and Larry Davis hooked up to a lie detector and ask them if they regret leaving and not getting to play for Coach Lowe. Sure Werner got an all-expenses paid trip to the Final 4, but he’ll play about as much as I will. He’s their Ferguson.

  13. gopack968 03/27/2007 at 10:05 AM #

    I wonder if Kentucky might finally win the annual “Mark Few sweepstakes.” These stories provide conflicting opinions:

    http://www.kentucky.com/276/story/26297.html

    http://www.kitsapsun.com/bsun/sp_college_sports/article/0,2666,BSUN_23502_5441955,00.html

    You have to wonder how long he will stay in the wilds of western Washington – doomed to have good, but rarely great players. However, he is a Pacific Northwest guy. Perhaps this is his comfort zone.

  14. gopack968 03/27/2007 at 10:06 AM #

    That second link should be:

    http://www.kitsapsun.com/bsun/sp_college_sports/article/0,2666,BSUN_23502_5441955,00.html

  15. Dexter 03/27/2007 at 10:18 AM #

    ^ In recent memory college coaches headed to the NBA have struggled, but they did take over bad teams. In the case of Billy D going to Miami, he would be taking over one of the better teams in the EAST.

  16. choppack1 03/27/2007 at 10:48 AM #

    that’s true Dexter, but if I’m the Heat I wouldn’t hire a college coach for this gig. The dynamic in the NBA is totally different. College basketball is more HC-centric than the NBA.

    I think the leadership and management approach in the NBA is a little more complex than in the college game.

  17. BoKnowsNCS71 03/27/2007 at 10:49 AM #

    With tongue in cheek — Dereck Whittenburg to Kentucky, I mean after seeing how Sidney did this year another Valvano prodigy might be the fix for KY. 😉

  18. Texpack 03/27/2007 at 11:10 AM #

    The word in Houston today was that Arkansas waited until A&M was eliminated and they had an agreement in principle with BG before firing Stan Heath. The sticking point with BG is that there is a basketball practice facility that has been approved by the Board of Regents but construction hasn’t started yet. The interesting thing about this year’s coaching musical chairs is that there were no Cinderella coaches in the NCAA tournament to be cast as up and comers. This does raise the prospect of Whittenberg getting a chance to move up after some dominoes fall.

  19. class of 74 03/27/2007 at 11:14 AM #

    Both Hubie and Daly were assistants under Bubas at Duke.

    Jeremy Foley is not about to let Donovan go at UF. Money there is not an issue and besides Donovan would not want to play his old coach and boss every year anyway. I’d bet the ranch Donovan stays at UF.

  20. RedTerror29 03/27/2007 at 11:17 AM #

    ^To me Kentucky is a better job than Florida, but not enough to leave a good thing unless Donovan REALLY wants to coach at UK…and I don’t think he does.

    Arkansas is a similar program to ours. They have a couple NC’s and want to be players.

  21. PapaJohn 03/27/2007 at 11:28 AM #

    I’m thinking that Donovan is just playing along to get a salary boost at Florida. At Florida he’s probably considered the best coach they’ve ever had (However, I don’t know my FL bball history), or at least one of them. He’s well established in recruiting, and has got to be the King of Gainesville right now. At KY, the best he could hope for is to be “another in a long line of great coaches.”
    As someone previously pointed out, unless he’s a KY grad, which I believe one of you said he is not, then there is no reason to go.

  22. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 03/27/2007 at 11:38 AM #

    Is Rick Barns out of the running? He seems like the logical choice to me. One of the leading national names and at a football school with a chance to make a great career move.

  23. RedTerror29 03/27/2007 at 11:43 AM #

    ^^We all know Norm Sloan was the best basketball coach Florida ever had, thank you very much.

  24. ncsu96 03/27/2007 at 11:48 AM #

    Papajohn – You may be right but FWIW Donovan turned down a extension and salary boost last year. He said it wasn’t appropriate to talk about money when they were asking their players to turn away NBA money.

    I thought that was pretty cool. I’m sure he get a big fat contract this year but obviously he deserves it.

  25. choppack1 03/27/2007 at 11:49 AM #

    PJ – He played at Providence for Pitino. He was an assistant for several years in Lexington. If he was from Kentucky – as in born there, or spent his childhood there – or if wife really loved the BlueGrass state – these things are possible.

    This is why we had a shot at Barnes – he was from North Carolina.

    If he wasn’t from NC – and liked Austin – he probably can only hope to rebuild what he created at Tejas – and it doesn’t make logical sense for someone to leave that situation unless there is something else going on.

    Unless he’s got problems w/ the AD, a sentimental reason to return to Kentucky or has a complex that makes him want to be the number 1 sport on campus, then he really doesn’t have a reason to leave U of F. Reason 3 would scare me away from a candidate because I’d worry about his priorities and how he’d react to criticism.

    This is why timing is so critical for certain jobs. Donovan may have considered UK a couple of years ago. Of course, the same Blue necks who are clamouring for him now may have blown a gasket because at this time, he was known more for having his blue-chip squad bow out of the tourney early and chemistry problems on his team than his coaching expertise. Now, the great recruiter has credibility as a basketball coach. He’d already shown he can competed w/ ANYONE when it comes to assessing and assembling talent at Florida. Now, he’s shown he can win the big one….at Florida.

    This is also why it’s important that the AD not be a prick. UNC-W’s AD ran off their coach who landed at Wright State. UNC-W stayed at home this year, Wright State went to the Big Dance.

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