Buzz Williams leaving VaTech for A&M; what's next for Hokies?

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Buzz Williams is reportedly leaving Virginia Tech to coach at Texas A&M. After an impressive run in March and finishing with 12 ACC wins, a first for the school, just how good of a job is the one at Virginia Tech and who might the Hokies hire?

MORE ON WILLIAMS TO A&M: HokieHaven.com

Williams might go down as the most successful coach Virginia Tech has ever employed. Granted, his tenure in Blacksburg lasted just five years, but it he did take the Hokies to postseason play every year, and he won a number of hard-hitting recruiting battles including that of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Landers Nolley and Anthony Harris. He leaves the program in a much better spot compared with when he found it.

The school's location does not help as it is a bit remote. Throw in its football counterparts that, despite a downward turn in recent years, continue to reign supreme as the dominant sport at the school.

Before Williams took the job in Blacksburg, the Hokies had only made one Sweet 16, that coming in 1967. Va Tech has never reached the Final Four, nor has it won its respective league since 1979. There are zero active NBA players that played for the program and the facilities, while they have been refurbished in recent years, are older and not up to par compared with others in the ACC.

Despite all that is going against it, thanks to its ACC affiliation, recent track record of success, fan and administration support, and underclassmen talent, there will be no shortage of quality candidates for the opening.

Ryan Odom is the author of the greatest NCAA Tournament in history when No. 16 seed UMBC beat Virginia last year. The 44-year-old has put together a contending unit in the America East and boasts a 62 percent career winning percentage. He also spent eight years at Virginia Tech as an assistant.

He has a great network throughout the talented DMV region and East Coast thanks to prior work at Charlotte and Wake Forest, so asking for him to navigate the region would not be a tall task. He recently signed a contract that will pay him a base rate salary of $425,000 that goes through 2023, which should not cause many issues for the Virginia Tech administration. Odom is due for a power league job; the one in Blacksburg could be it.

The name of Wes Miller has reverberated throughout the industry for over a year now for the next power conference opening. Miller was unable to get his UNC-Greensboro squad back to the NCAA Tournament this month, an achievement that the Spartans celebrated last year for the first time in 28 years. But the 36-year old has created one of the most daunting mid-major programs. Outgoing, humble and a young face that should do well with the boosters and alumni base, all of the stars might be aligning for Miller to lead a power league program.

Finances would be the first and largest deterrent in Shaka Smart leaving Texas as he is due more than $13 million. If not for the financial hurdles, would Smart have the desire to return to the East Coast where he experienced his greatest success as a coach? Quite possibly.

His Havoc brand didn’t relocate as seamlessly as he would have liked from VCU to Texas, but at Virginia Tech, he might have the chance to get back to what got him there in the first place. A few hurdles would have to be overcome, but Smart and his ties to the region warrant a conversation.

Could this be the time for Gregg Marshall to leave Wichita State? Possible but a major financial buy-out and a contract that has him locked in at WSU could stand in the way of Virginia Tech hiring him. If numbers are not a problem, Marshall makes sense for a lot of reasons.

For one, his return to the East Coast where he began his career at Winthrop, along with his teams' angry style of ball, comparable to that of Williams’ teams in Blacksburg, would fit the bill. He also played his college ball right down the road at Randolph-Macon, and went on to coach at College of Charleston and Marshall. He is also the type that would not back down from the coaching goliaths in the ACC.

There has been talk that Mike Jones has turned down a few jobs this spring and might have his eye on a bigger prize, that being the one now open at Virginia Tech. The Radford head coach has made the program one of the more consistently successful in recent years, thanks to his eye for under-the-radar talent, but also for his work in the coach’s box.

He took the Highlanders to the NCAA Tournament last season and won the Big South Conference this past. Jones has spent a number of years in the state of Virginia, whether it has been as the head coach at Radford, or as an assistant at Richmond and VCU. While he might not be the sexy hire that wins the press conference in the mold of Smart or Marshall, he does bring plenty of experience in the region and in building a program that is not perceived to be among the best in its conference.

While his name has been tossed around for the current opening at Vanderbilt, as sources have told Rivals.com that he has already interviewed for the opening, John Thompson III is a viable candidate for the Virginia Tech gig, too. Thompson’s proximity to Blacksburg is much closer compared with that at Vanderbilt, which would make it much easier to tap into the strong network base that he has developed throughout the talent-rich region of the DMV.

The former Georgetown head coach has been out of the business for the past two years and while things turned for the worse prior to his firing, Thompson won 278 games on the Hilltop and took the Hoyas to postseason play every season outside of his final two at the Big East program.