Dave Glenn addresses Billy Donovan rumor(10 am updated)

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Dave Glenn’s twitter feed:

From DG – “Sources at Florida and N.C. State not only deny the Billy Donovan-NCSU rumor, they mock the ridiculous, illogical, completely baseless and fundamentally insane nature of the whole thing.”

————————————————————————————
It was a wild day on the Internet this afternoon as apparently erroneous rumors broke that Billy Donovan was in Raleigh visiting/interviewing for the NC State basketball position. The rumors picked up steam shortly before 5:00 pm and then reached fever pitch with this report on twitter:

979ESPNRadio 97.9 ESPN Radio

Reliable source within ESPN tells us Billy Donovan is in Raleigh interviewing for N.C. State Job. Wow.

Additionally, Mike Lederer reported:

Breaking News: Florida Gators head coach Billy Donovan is currently in Raleigh, North Carolina interviewing for the vacant N.C. State head coaching position sources say.

Two sources have confirmed that Donovan is in fact in Raleigh and has likely already spoken with Athletic Director Debbie Yow.

Here is a link to Mike’s background. We have no clue if he is credible or not.

This was quickly shot down by Dave Telep of ESPN with this series of tweets(read from the bottom up):

DaveTelep Dave Telep
Billy Donovan was in Crescent Beach, Fla., most of the day today. If you pass him driving home on HWY 301, shoot him a wave!
3 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

DaveTelep Dave Telep
Regarding Donovan: two titles in Fla, helped build a church, he’s rich, well paid. Come on people, use your brains a little here.
3 hours ago

DaveTelep Dave Telep
I’m not home in Raleighwood but I know this much: Billy Donovan isn’t in Raleighwood either. He’s most definitely not a candidate at NCSU

So where does the search stand? J.P. Giglio gave us some updates tonight as well(read from the bottom up):

jpgiglio Joe Giglio
Those aren’t the only two options, just where the search is at …. both coaches still have games left
22 minutes ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

jpgiglio Joe Giglio
Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall, as he has been all along, and VCU’s Shaka Smart, are the main targets
27 minutes ago

jpgiglio Joe Giglio
Debbie Yow is scheduled to go to the Final Four
29 minutes ago

jpgiglio Joe Giglio
N.C. State search unlikely to end this week

At this point, it appears all big name candidates are off the board and the focus has turned to up and comers and other mid-majors. Gregg Marshall is a name that is familiar to a lot of NC State fans from his success at Winthrop and his flirtation with our job 5 years ago. So it isn’t a surprise that he would be on Yow’s list after doing a very respectable rebuilding job at Wichita St. If you weren’t watching, then Wichita St. pounded Washington St. by 30+ points tonight in the NIT semi-finals.

When Marshall’s name comes up, immediately it will draw comments about personality issues. Regardless, he has built two programs from the ground up, been to the NCAA tournament 7 times, and is making a great run in this year’s NIT. Essentially, he has done nothing but win at a high level his entire career.

There has been a trend in recent years with successful mid-majors turning down major conference opportunities. Brad Stevens stayed at Butler after the run to the finals last year. Chris Mack turned down a $2 million per year, 8 year deal from Tennessee to stay at Xavier(NCAA issues at UT might have been a concern) this weekend. Richmond’s Chris Mooney turned down Georgia Tech although it has been speculated that it may not have even been an increase in pay.

So would Marshall take our job? Opinions vary:

TheBigLead Jason Mcintyre
As of today, i heard Marshall isnt an option at NCSU. okl or stays RT @GottliebShow: My guess is NC State gets Shaka, Marshall the back-up

Fortunately for NC State, another mid-major has emerged with VCU’s amazing run to the Final Four led by Shaka Smart. Smart is charismatic, intelligent, has a chip on his shoulder, has pedigree having worked for Oliver Purnell and Billy Donovan, recruiting experience throughout NC State’s geographic region, national recruiting experience at Florida, and a style of play that will attract players and sell lots of tickets.

In terms of fit for our job, the only thing he lacks is a long track record. However, his potential and room for growth appears almost unlimited. I have said for years that the easiest way for NC State to hire an elite coach is to hire them before they establish themselves at an Arizona(Miller) or a Texas(Barnes) when hiring them away is near impossible. He is a much more attractive candidate than Sean Miller was five years ago. Miller had only been at Xavier for 2 years and his results were average relative to Thad Matta, Skip Prosser and Pete Gillen previously. Should we have hired Sean Miller?

From Smart’s perspective, the NC State job appears to be right in his sweet spot. He and his wife reside in Richmond, so Raleigh is similar enough where the move makes sense(despite three moves recently to Clemson, to Gainesville and then to Richmond). At Clemson, he recruited NC, SC, and GA. At Florida, he recruited Florida and nationally. At VCU, he surely has built connections in Richmond, Tidewater, and the DC metro area. With the buzz from the Final Four run, he should be able to keep the roster and recruiting class together to give himself a chance to win immediately.

Essentially, it is a match made in heaven from both sides and the timing is perfect. He is the hottest young coach in the country, we have a job that suits him, and we have the money to pay what he is going to command. In my opinion, he would recruit at a higher level than either Herb Sendek or Sidney Lowe who combined to bring a top 15 recruiting haul since 1998. His predecessor at VCU, Anthony Grant, got $1.8 million per year from Alabama to give you a ballpark idea of what it will take to land Smart. In my opinion, it could end up taking more than $2 million to get Shaka to Raleigh. His team is built around 4 seniors so there is a reason to cash in now. But if he wins a national title this weekend, then can he really leave?

For those holding out hope that Yow is sending smoke screens to Giglio and his pals, then one NC State website(PackInsider) has stuck to its guns that something is going on regarding Billy Donovan:

Our sources come from people involved in coaching circles. From people who are not being swayed by the Parker Search Firm and by media hype. Could we be wrong? Absolutely, we could have been wrong on every breaking story we’ve ever released, but we haven’t been. Why think that those same people are giving us bad information now? We don’t and we trust what we’ve been told

Check the link and read the whole post from Pack Insider Staff.

As far as the Donovan rumors, various authors have heard Donovan rumors for a month+ from lots of different places. However, it just never made sense to us. I did do some research into Yow’s and Donovan’s background looking for a connection or something that would give us reason to believe the rumors. I stumbled across this old article detailing how Donovan built Florida and his confrontations with South Carolina coach Eddie Fogler and then Kansas coach Roy Williams:

Similarly, Miller’s decision to forgo Lexington and, especially, Lawrence, for sunny Gainesville sent such a shock wave through college basketball that an enraged Kansas coach Roy Williams sicced the NCAA on Florida—and didn’t care who knew it. “I don’t care who Skinny signs with,” said Williams, after his final visit to Miller’s hometown last fall, “I’m turning Florida in.

Never mind that a 10-month NCAA investigation, completed in August, cleared Donovan’s staff of the five allegations made by Kansas. In the murky, rumor-fueled world of recruiting, the mere fact that Williams, a squeaky-clean figure whose public acts and words are usually about as dry as grain dust, openly went after the Gators was tantamount to releasing the Starr report.

I was vague in that entry, but it should be obvious now why that entry was posted. Might the issues with Roy/UNC be a motivating factor to take the NC State job in addition to taking on a new opportunity at a basketball school with a fan base starving for success?

In the end, it doesn’t appear likely. But things can always change.

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105 Responses to Dave Glenn addresses Billy Donovan rumor(10 am updated)

  1. Pack1998 03/30/2011 at 12:06 AM #

    DU . . .not a big deal, he got on there and said some things about the search, nothing concrete. I thought Taylor Z (sp?) was more optimistic than J.P. — Taylor made a good balanced comment about the average past coaches and said State was one good coach away from being relevant . . . J.P. said our history as a basketball program was extinct, nobody remembers it. Just re-stating the comments, not my opinion.

  2. Daily Update 03/30/2011 at 12:06 AM #

    OK, still don’t know what you mean by no offense. JP was on twitter tonight. I wrote the entry giving information on Smart and Marshall because JP says they are the focus of the search.

  3. quypack93 03/30/2011 at 12:07 AM #

    Please no Brey. No way. We have seen the ceiling with him. Plus, he doesn’t wear a tie. LOL.

  4. gowpack 03/30/2011 at 12:46 AM #

    So now the media isn’t a bunch of morons? The following from the “Here…we…go!! (7:15pm update)” posting on Sunday….

    “Ultimately, we expect NC State will either nail one of three BIG NAMES in the next week…or we will end up on “List Two”. The morons that have been reporting that NC State was already on some kind of second list (with names like Shaka Smart and others) just shows how much they know — nada.”

  5. 61Packer 03/30/2011 at 4:53 AM #

    The Smart choice wouldn’t necessarily be the best choice. Great move for him, but I’m not so sure it would be a great move for NCSU. Only 2 years head coaching experience; finished 5th and 4th in the CAA those two years. Marshall appears to be another Sendek personality-wise.

    The more things change, apparently the more they remain the same.

  6. Avid109 03/30/2011 at 5:00 AM #

    After all of the BD hype, I’ll be disappointed with either Marshall or Smart.

  7. Hamlet 03/30/2011 at 5:30 AM #

    Probably stating the obvious here, but I would have to think that we are at the second tier of coaches if we do not hear something today. Either way, this has got to shake loose really soon.

  8. wolfonthehill 03/30/2011 at 5:45 AM #

    I would’ve opened the wallet up a bit for one of the “big three/four”. I simply won’t do so for Smart, Marshall, etc…

  9. Hamlet 03/30/2011 at 5:48 AM #

    ^ At least Smart would sell tickets and bring national attention to the university. A Marshall hire would not even achieve that much.

  10. Avid109 03/30/2011 at 6:20 AM #

    Hmmmm. I’m beginning to think that DU is trying to lower expectations.

  11. Wulfpack 03/30/2011 at 6:30 AM #

    “In the end, I agree that both would be good hires. If for some reason we can’t land either…”

    If we can’t one of these guys, it shows you exactly where Wolfpack hoops stands. We need the BD rumors to be true in the worse way.

  12. Fenrir 03/30/2011 at 7:01 AM #

    last night i called my son (nc state grad) to gloat over the rumors that BD was in raleigh. i was gushing with excitement over the idea that state could instantly erase all the disappointment in the basketball program. i was dizzy with dreams of grandeur over striking fear in the heart or ol’ roy and the unc bandwagon fans. then with one simple question my son brought me back to reality. he said “dad, how long have you been a state fan?”
    it really upsets and bothers me that he has been conditioned to believe that we cannot overcome ourselves. that every time you start to believe the rug is yanked out from under you and your left with that same old empty feeling.
    i want to believe that we have a knock out, home-run hire, i want to badly, but one question “dad, how long have you been a state fan?”. has me back on the ground. from this point forward i’m out, no more speculating and hand-ringing. i will wait for the announcement from yow and company.

  13. Packfan28 03/30/2011 at 7:02 AM #

    I listened to Ggilio on Zarzour’s show last night driving home from work. He was a clueless as the rest of us and admitted it. The two guys you mention in the article’s title were just his guesses at the time. The article’s title is making it sound like fact, and is extremely misleading.

  14. Packfan28 03/30/2011 at 7:04 AM #

    And ignore the typos. It’s early and my edit function doesn’t work.

  15. blpack 03/30/2011 at 7:12 AM #

    The BD rumors had me going. Wish it was true. We will see how the next few days play out. Marshall is just abrasive enough to take on all comers. Watch out for a couple bozos on his staff though. Smart is hip and intelligent enough to be a potential recruiting wiz kid.
    Coaches can get big money in a lot of places and get on tv. We have some things working against us regardless of who our neighbors may be. Let’s hope for the best.

  16. Packfan28 03/30/2011 at 7:19 AM #

    Sorry, one more clarification. The article title isn’t misleading, it is Giglio’s twitter that is BS.

  17. albunde6 03/30/2011 at 7:29 AM #

    Do we have the money to pay a BD 4-6 million per year?

    If not a BD,RB,or SM, then would we want to pay $2m per year for mid, mid mid major?

    Can a coach,not used to recruiting against giants,be successful at State? (Every conference has a giant, we are fortunate to have two old giants)

    Do we want a coach without a system for success.

    Should our next coach have a track record for developing talent and making lemonade out or lemons?

    For the record, do not think we are getting a BD. Do love the angle of Roy turning him into NCAA. Would have my attention if I were a BD, but I kept my hate close by for those cold days.

  18. BJD95 03/30/2011 at 7:36 AM #

    Guys, different authors have different takes to share. There is significant variation in how we perceive the current state of affairs.

    I think you have to look at this search as a logic puzzle rather than an information gathering exercise. And logically, I can’t see how we are on to Plan B yet. Everything except for selected, deliberate misinformation tidbits is extremely vague. I think anyone who claims to “know” what’s going on is clearly mistaken, if not out and out lying.

    You can start worrying Friday morning, and start panicking Saturday morning. Until then, hold tight.

    I do happen to have a good contact with personal info on Marshall. His issues go way beyond just being an asshole, without the results to justify putting up with it. He and the players he recruits would be horrible representatives of the university (while putting up 7-9, NIT-caliber results). This is the one name I’ve heard that would seriously cause me to lose all faith in DY.

    I’ve walked back from the ledge on Smart. Would he be a huge disappointment? Sure. But not a guaranteed loser. He’s well-regarded in the coaching community, and is clearly a brilliant mind. Anyone comparing him to Lowe is misinformed or something much worse. He belongs on the B List.

    There are other reasonable names (such as Cincy’s Mick Cronin) who would be available and night and day preferable to a guy like Gregg Marshall. But we can cross that bridge when we get to it. If and when.

  19. albunde6 03/30/2011 at 7:40 AM #

    We are tracking the wrong person. Where is DY? Where has she gone over the last two weeks? Don’t we have at least one state person at RDU. We need to know when she gets on DaPlane, DaPlane, DaPlane.

  20. Daily Update 03/30/2011 at 7:41 AM #

    packfan28: Giglio’s appearance on the radio show was yesterday morning or afternoon(can’t keep track with what time any of those shows are now).

    His tweets came last night around 10 pm.

    The article is based on his tweets which I took as statements of fact. Additionally, we have Dave Glenn who has stated as fact that Shaka Smart is a target of the search.

    We have professional journalists that have said the big names are not on the board(Giglio w/ S. Marshall, Glenn with Barnes, and Telep with Donovan).

    Argue with those guys.

  21. xpistou 03/30/2011 at 7:41 AM #

    Could someone please explain to me why Giglio is the resource? Why does he have intel that others don’t?

  22. VaWolf82 03/30/2011 at 7:46 AM #

    We’ve already documented the media folks who have staked out their negative opinion on State and State fans. While Giglio isn’t necessarily the “resource”, he is good and he doesn’t have an axe to grind with State. In other words, I trust him but I don’t expect him to infallible.

  23. Avid109 03/30/2011 at 7:51 AM #

    I think BJD95 is on the right track. If we had exhausted our A-list candidates, we would already have settled on someone else and something would have leaked out. The lack of credible information seems to indicate that Yow and company have received interest from one (if not more) of the A-list candidates.

  24. Pack78 03/30/2011 at 7:51 AM #

    ^Reminds of Bobby Knight’s comment years ago when he was being hammered by sportswriters over one issue or another: ‘Sportswriters…most of us learned to write in the second grade and then moved on to other things”

  25. BJD95 03/30/2011 at 8:01 AM #

    JPG doesn’t have an axe to grind. But it’s also not his job to speculate, or try to decipher the “logic puzzle” aspect of the search. I’m sure he wrote the article in good faith, but it is by no means something to hang your hat on re the B List.

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