And we're off...

With Mark Gottfried resigning from Alabama recently, the coaching carousel has begun to spin already. While no one will claim that Alabama is a top-tier job, it certainly has the capability to be. It was only a few years ago that the Tide were #1 in the nation for a time and advanced to the Elite Eight. Alabama is in an elite conference, is a school that is committed to winning, and has a supportive fan base. This could be an attractive job for an up and coming coach such as Anthony Grant. I do not expect that Grant will ultimately end up there, expect Alabama to make a push for the young and successful coach.

I think that we will see several names thrown into the mix, including: Jim Christian (TCU), Doug Wojcik (Tulsa), and Reggie Theus (formerly of New Mexico State and the Sacramento Kings).

Alabama is a big enough job where they will be able to go after someone with a successful head coaching resume, the coach will probably be younger and energetic, and be charismatic enough to recruit with Gillispie, Pearl, and Donovan in the SEC.

There are many other jobs that could cause a domino affect and I think that Arizona is the biggest one out there. It is an upper echelon job and they should be able to pull in a very high-level candidate. I would expect that their two biggest candidates would be Jamie Dixon (Pittsburgh) and Mark Few (Gonzaga).

Dixon has been highly successful and is a worthy candidate of that job. He was born in California and his wife is from Hawaii. While he clearly has ties to the West Coast, I would be surprised if he left for Arizona. He is comfortable at Pitt and is proving that he can hang with anyone in the Big East. Pitt has played for 7 of the last 8 Big East Championships. I just don’t see Arizona as an upgrade for him when he is already thriving in his current position.

Few is an interesting case. I think that if he were ever to leave his comfortable job at Gonzaga, this would be an opportunity that he would take. This would allow him to stay out on the West Coast, it is clearly a place where he can compete for national championships, and he would most likely receive a hefty raise. Expect for Arizona to pursue him hard and make him an absurd offer.

Now if Few were to leave Gonzaga, who would get that job? Would they perform a national search and try and bring in a big name candidate? I would expect them to try and hire Bill Grier, the current head coach at San Diego. Grier was a major part of the success that Gonzaga achieved in the late 90’s and through today. He spent 16 years as an assistant and associate head coach and would be a perfect fit for the school.

I wonder if Gonzaga would think about making a run at Dan Monson. Monson is the architect of the Gonzaga basketball program and was the head coach when the Bulldogs burst onto the scene with an Elite Eight appearance in 1999. He is currently the head coach at Long Beach State and I would think that Gonzaga would be an upgrade for him. The only question is, would Gonzaga want him back?

Another interesting question that needs to be asked is what is Maryland going to do with Gary Williams? Williams played for Maryland, has been the head coach there since 1989, and has won a national championship in this decade. Yet Maryland has missed the NCAA tournament 3 out of the last 4 years and this year’s team is on the bubble once again by losing to Morgan State at home and at Duke by 41. Williams has always had the reputation of recruiting lesser-heralded players and turning them into Division 1 players. Is this really something that you want your coach doing if you are Maryland? Not recruiting the top talent because you hate the AAU circuit and all that comes with it. I wonder if Carmelo Anthony could have helped Maryland back in 2002-2003 when he played for Syracuse; he was from Baltimore and never recruited heavily by the hometown Terrapins.

This situation reminds me an awful of the Phillip Fulmer situation at Tennessee this past year. The man played for the university, coached them to great success, and was ultimately pushed out the door because of recent failures on the field and in recruiting. Sound familiar?

Williams has built Maryland into a wonderful program and one that would attract a big name coach. I am not sure who would be in the running for that job but I would have to think that Sean Miller’s name would be thrown into the mix. Miller is still relatively young, has had a tremendous amount of success in his 5 years as a head coach, has experiencing coaching in the ACC, and has lots of east coast recruiting ties. This will be an interesting job to watch over the next few months.

I think that Paul Hewitt saved his job at Georgia Tech by getting Derrick Favors to commit to play for him next year. Hewitt has missed the NCAA tournament 2 out of the last 3 years and unless they win the ACC tournament this year, the Yellow Jackets will have missed it 3 out of 4 years. Ultimately pulling in the #4 rated prospect in the 2009 class may have allowed Hewitt to keep his job.

Sidney Lowe is also struggling right now. The North Carolina State coach was 20-16 in his first year at NCST but just 5-11 in conference play, in year two of Lowe’s tenure NCST was 15-16 and finished in last place in the ACC with a 4-12 record, this year NCST is currently 10-7 and 1-4 in the conference. Sounds to me like a school that is digressing and wondering if they made the right decision in hiring someone who had never coached a single year in college basketball. Suddenly Herb Sendek doesn’t seem so bad.

Final Four Prediction

After a few weeks of conference play, teams are starting to seperate themselves. If I had to predict a final four today, it would look like this:

Michigan State
North Carolina
Duke
Connecticut

Obvoiusly these are not very bold predictions, as all 4 teams are currnently in the top 10 and have a combined record of 63-6, but I really think that these 4 teams have seperated themselves. Michigan State is currently outrebounding opponents by 10 rebounds per game. Duke is only allow 60.6 PPG right now on with schedule that includes good teams such as Purdue, Michigan, Xavier, Davidson, and Georgetown. Connecticut is proving itself in the Big East, they are defending pretty well, and have 5 guys averaging double digits so far. North Carolina can push the ball and play at any pace and their talent alone makes them a final four candidate.

Some sleepers that i like at this point in time are:

Pittsburgh-Defends and Rebounds like crazy
Arizona State-Defend, well-coached, and have an All-American on the team
Louisville-Score easily, experienced, extremely talented, and well-coached
UCLA-With 3 straight trips, must include them until someone proves they can knock them off
Xavier-Sean Miller, defend well, and experienced team

Top 25 Week of January 12th

Here is my Top 25:

1. Pittsburgh
2. Wake Forest
3. Duke
4. Connecticut
5. Oklahoma
6. Michigan State
7. North Carolina
8. Texas
9. UCLA
10. Notre Dame
11. Syracuse
12. Georgetown
13. Clemson
14. Marquette
15. Xavier
16. Purdue
17. Arizona State
18. Minnesota
19. Louisville
20. Butler
21. Baylor
22. Michigan
23. California
24. Arkansas
25. Illinois

College Basketball Notes

Whose wins would you rather have, Michigan's or Arkansas's? Michigan has beaten #10 UCLA on a neutral floor and #2 Duke at home. Arkansas has beaten #6 Oklahoma at home and #7 Texas at home. Both sets of wins are extremely impressive, however I would give the edge to Michigan. I think that having a win over a Pac 10 team and an ACC team is going to carry more weight in the long run over 2 wins over Big 12 schools. Plus the neutral win is going to count for more than a home win.

Purdue is off to a rough start in conference play; they lost at home to Illinois in overtime and lost on the road to Penn State last night. With Wisconsin coming to West Layefette next, the Boilermakers are facing the possibility of an 0-3 start. Probably not what Matt Painter had in mind for his pre-season top 10 team.

In other Big Ten news, don't look now but Michigan State is off to a 3-0 start in conference play. The last time that they started 3-0 in conference play, they won the national championship.

Davidson travels to play Duke at Cameron Indoor tonight. I think that a win over the Blue Devils on their home floor, cements Davidson as an at-large team. Duke currently has a 66 game home non-conference winning streak, so a win there is tough to come by. Davidson currently have wins over North Carolina State and West Virginia and have dropped games to Oklahoma and Purdue. Davidson really challenged itself by playing such a tough non-conference schedule and I think that they will see positive results from doing this. A win over Duke and the Wildcats are just playing for seeding the rest of the way.

College Football Playoff System

After watching Utah beat Alabama pretty handily and watching USC beat Penn State they way that they did, I have finally turned to the dark side and am in favor of a playoff. Utah has a legitimate claim to the National Title. They won at Michigan, beat Oregon State, beat TCU, beat BYU, and beat Alabama. Those are 5 great wins and even though Michigan was terrible, they still went into the Big House and won. I don’t think it is fair that they never really had a chance to win it all.

USC is interesting. They were obviously penalized for losing at Oregon State and it really hurt them that it was on a Thursday night when the entire nation was watching. But Oregon State went on to be a good football team that won 9 games and a bowl game. Is losing on the road to a 9 win team worse than Florida losing at home to a 9 win Ole Miss team? I feel like even though they were beating teams in the Pac 10, people didn’t give them a second thought because of the Oregon St. game and because of how bad Washington and Washington St. were. It was well publicized that Washington was 0-12 and WSU was 2-11. I think that hurt USC as well because the national perspective was that the Pac 10 is terrible and that USC is beating up on no one. However, the Pac 10 went 5-0 in their bowl games, pretty impressive.

Toss in the fact that Texas is not being given a shot for the national title and I think that college football needs to have some type of a playoff. There is just to much controversy and debate as to who the best team is in college football.