Friday wild for coaching moves
A college basketball version of "Black Friday" struck the sport today.
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Coaches are out at Tennessee and St. John's while another appears pretty close to being out the door at Texas. Along the way, recruits are reconsidering their decisions while athletic directors have opened themselves to criticism with a few of these decisions.
Let's go ahead and start with the potential mess that has been created at Texas by Athletic Director Steve Patterson.
It has been widely reported that Patterson met with current coach Rick Barnes during the week and told him he would need to make major changes to his staff in order to keep his job.
Whether it is replacing one assistant coach or the entire staff, if Barnes were to go this route it would likely end up a disaster for the Longhorns on several levels.
Now that Barnes has essentially been named dead man walking by his AD, how he chooses to handle his predicament will have a major impact on the future of Texas basketball. Barnes is said to be fiercely loyal to assistants Rob Lanier, Russell Springmann and Chris Ogden and multiple Big 12 coaches told Rivals.com on Friday that the move is essentially a ploy to try and force Barnes into resigning and perhaps saving Texas some money on a buyout.
If Barnes decides to stick around and fight for his job, it isn't likely to be easy.
Finding qualified and competent assistant coaches who want to take a job under that kind of fire presents its fair share of challenges. Going out on the recruiting trail would be nearly impossible because of the questions and negative recruiting that would pop up. Plus, it wouldn't solve the single biggest problem Texas basketball has right now: a disconnect between Barnes and many of the coaches and players in the state of Texas.
One Big 12 assistant broke it down to Rivals.
"How can anybody possibly recruit to that," said the assistant. "Patterson is taking the (expletive) way out and trying to force Barnes to resign because he knows he's loyal to his guys."
Should Barnes step down -- which looks like the most logical outcome -- or should Patterson reverse his field and just let Barnes go, expect Wichita State's Gregg Marshall to be the No. 1 name on the Longhorns wish list. Ever since rumors of Barnes' job being unsafe started popping up mid season, Marshall's name has been thrown around in coaching circles, and the perceived notion is that he would have legitimate interest in the Texas job.
Of course, there will be a free-for-all on Texas' two four-star guard commitments Kerwin Roach and Eric Davis if a change is made. That is, if they decide to look around.
Moving onto Tennessee. Athletic Director Dave Hart has to at least have some egg on his face after firing Donnie Tyndall on Friday morning. It's not that Tennessee has to make another change after Cuonzo Martin bolted for California just 11 months ago. It's that a quick search process that resulted in Tyndall's hiring put the Volunteers in a bad spot.
The entire reason Tennessee had to replace Martin was because they had to let the highly popular Bruce Pearl go a few years previous due to issues with the NCAA. With Pearl out and Martin leaving, the dominoes fell in place for Tyndall, formerly at Southern Mississippi, to take the Tennessee posting.
Keep in mind, it was known that Tyndall had just gotten in trouble with the NCAA for infractions that happened under his watch at Morehead State where he coached prior to Southern Miss.
Anybody is entitled a second chance and Tyndall likely assured Hart that things would be fine. But it only took until November for allegations to arise that Tyndall was likely in more hot water because of additional infractions that occurred at Southern Miss.
With the benefit of hindsight, these issues seem rather glaring. Even without it, Tyndall's past issues may have come to light if he was properly vetted by an athletic director or search committee.
Though the Tennessee job isn't quite as desirable in the eyes of college coaches as the Texas job, it is still a very good job. The tumult of the last year will make some potential candidates take pause, but provided the Volunteers take their time and do a proper search they should be able to find a very good coach to take over and try to clean things up.
2015 recruits Shembari Phillips and Admiral Schofield -- both three-star wings -- have already signed with Tennessee and are likely to sit tight and see who is hired.
Finally there is the case of St. John's. There aren't many more popular coaches with media and fans than Steve Lavin but in this case a mutual parting of the ways seems to be best for all involved.
While Lavin had generally recruited well during his time in New York, results on the floor were a bit inconsistent and two-thirds of his 2014 recruiting class -- junior college transfer Keith Thomas and high school prospect Adonis DelaRosa -- were ruled ineligible. 2015 recruiting had been on the rise with commitments from top 50 shooting guard Brandon Sampson and three-star guards Samir Doughty and Sammy Barnes-Thompkins but the Johnnies were still scrambling to replace some big losses from their senior class.
Word is that it came down to money and the amount of years on an extension with some key boosters working against Lavin. So, rather than dragging things out, the parties have moved on and the Red Storm will now look for a new coach.
Former St. John's and NBA star Chris Mullin has immediately been tossed out as a possibility, as have brothers Bobby Hurley, Buffalo's head coach, and Danny Hurley, the head man at Rhode Island. So St. John's should be able to find another big name.
As for the recruits, Sampson has already confirmed he will look around, while it's unclear what Doughty and Barnes-Thompkins intend to do.
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