As much as State fans will hate to hear it, all signs point to Archie Miller spurning NC State.
Just a little while ago, Joe Giglio, a man who is as plugged in to NC State athletics as any outsider can be, posted this tweet:
Immediately afterwards, Giglio was bombarded with questions and theories. Sean Miller thinks he can get the UNC job when Roy Williams retires. Archie doesn’t want to work for Debbie Yow. Archie wants a B1G job, possibly Indiana. You name it, it’s probably out there. But no matter the reason(s), there’s no reasonable reason to believe that Archie Miller will be introduced as NC State’s next head coach in basketball any time soon. And that makes Miller pretty much this year’s version of Rick Barnes.
Realistically, State will end up doing pretty much what it has always done, that is, hire a new head coach who has shown potential at a lower level of competition. That list is long, and has some distinguished and not-so-distinguished members:
Everett Case got his first college head coaching job at NC State after serving in various basketball leadership roles for the US Navy during World War II and as a successful high school head coach before that.
Press Maravich had been the head coach at Clemson for six years, compiling a 55–96 record before coming to Raleigh to be an assistant coach under Case. He led the Wolfpack for two seasons before being lured to LSU.
Norm Sloan was 85–63 at Florida after becoming their first full-time head coach before returning to his alma mater.
Jim Valvano was Iona’s head coach before he came to Raleigh.
Les Robinson was at East Tennessee State prior to coming to Raleigh for the thankless task of salvaging what was left of NC State hoops after the university’s leadership decided to all but kill the program.
Then came people you likely need no introduction to: Herb Sendek from Miami of Ohio, Sidney Lowe from an assistant coaching job at the Detroit Pistons and Mark Gottfried from ESPN.
There’s an obvious pattern here, and it is one that will surely play itself out over the next few days or even weeks: NC State will hire a head coach from a much smaller and generally lower profile program, and hope that it works out. Case, Sloan and Valvano were no sure thing when they stepped onto NC State’s sidelines. Neither were Sendek, Lowe or Gottfried. And the next Wolfpack coach will also be a guy who is no guarantee. And that’s probably the only guarantee that Wolfpack fans will get.
You must be logged in to post a comment.