Before we start going in-depth with our examinations of Auburn basketball’s coaching candidates–or alleged candidates, at this early stage–I figured it would be worth asking first: What kind of candidate are we looking for? You can’t judge without criteria to judge with, right?
So here’s the official WBE criteria for the coaching search, from most critical to least:
1. A history of (clean) program building. For yours truly, nothing’s more important for Auburn than finding a coach who’s going to put together the program the same way the new arena’s been built: ground up, bottom-to-top, strong as concrete and steel. We’ve had coaches–Cliff Ellis–who tried it the quick-and-easy way with transfers and JUCOS, and while we got some incredible times out of that approach, we also got probation and a program that collapsed like a house of cards in his final season. We’ve also had coaches–Tommy Joe Eagles, Jeff Lebo–who tried to do things the right way and just failed. Even our program’s G.O.A.T., Sonny Smith, saw probation coming and bolted for a freaking Colonial school.
I’m tired of all that. If Auburn can, it’s time to find someone who’s both in it for the long haul and has proven he can make that long haul worth it and will stay clean throughout said haul. The arena doesn’t have anyone’s name on it as of yet; might as well shoot for finding someone whose name we could see Auburn slapping up on the side of the building 20 years from now, right?
Easier said than done, of course, but that’s what Jacobs has to aim for. So I’d also look at coaches with …
2. Success at more than one location, over more than one season. It’s one thing to turn the trick at one school; it’s another to prove yourself competent by doing it at multiple schools. Auburn is not like mid-major jobs, not like NBA jobs, not even like other SEC jobs; it is its own job, and the more flexibility and more adaptability a coach has on his resume, the more likely it becomes that he can adapt and succeed at Auburn, too.
This is what’s gotten Arkansas in trouble; Stan Heath and John Pelphrey both had dynamite tenures at Kent State and South Alabama, respectively, but neither had held a second head coaching position until they got to Fayetteville … and it was/is that second head coaching that’s proven to be the tougher one. Same goes for Dennis Felton at Georgia. Jan Van Breda Kolff at Vandy. Even Buzz Peterson at Tennessee, since his Tulsa tenure lasted all of one year. The point: more than one successful stop dramatically reduces the odds that Auburn’s hiring a lemon.
3. Postseason success. Maybe some other factor should rank this highly instead, given that the postseason represents such a small chunk of the overall season and that team-building has to come before you even think about March. But I think there’s two reasons to nonetheless consider postseason achievements an absolute must-have for the next coach:
1. This strikes me as a quality way to differentiate the good mid-major coach from the great one. Jeff Lebo had a terrific run at Tennessee Tech … except for the part where the Golden Eagles twice kicked away No. 1 seeds in the Ohio Valley tourney and settled for an NIT bid. (Admittedly, Lebo did make the SoCon finals in back-to-back years at Chattanooga.) Pelphrey had some issues at the Sun Belt tourney with USA, too.
2. No point in beating around the bush on this one: small part of the season it may be, it’s far, far and away the most important part of it. Some coaches–John Beilein, Jay Wright, Mike Anderson, Rick Stansbury (SEC tourney only)–have that postseason magic touch, and some–Oliver Purnell, Mark Few, Dino Gaudio, John Chaney–simply do not. If Auburn could find someone who can pay off a solid regular season with some big wins at the SEC tourney and the NIT/NCAAs, all the better.
4. Charisma and energy. Basketball coaches age better than their football brethren, so if Auburn was a firmly-established program with an already enthusiastic fanbase, I’d sign off on a low-key, experienced coach in his 50s.
But Auburn’s not that program. Trite as it sounds, Jacobs really does need a coach who can sell the program, who can connect with Auburn’s dormant fans and turn a Tiger basketball game into an event again. Winning would do wonders, of course, but the right coach could use the boost from the arena opening to fuel a level of excitement that would make winning more likely to begin with; think of the way Bruce Pearl re-energized the Vols and turned Thompson-Boling into an arena to be feared again virtually overnight. There’s only one Bruce Pearl, unfortunately, but regardless this is not the time for a “Dave Odom at South Carolina” type of hire.
5. Krootin’. Duh. If you can’t recruit, you can’t win. Sort of a subset of criterion No. 1 here, I guess, but also important enough that it deserves its own entry.
That’s the list, or at least the first five entries on it. We’ll start breaking down the candidates soon.
Photo via.
I want a young guy who’s been an assistant under some already well established coaches. I want ORLANDO ANTIGUA. Assistant coach at Pitt under Jamie Dixon and then with Calipari at Memphis and at Kentucky. The guy knows how to recruit and more importantly he knows what it takes to win. He’s already seen how to take non-basketball power houses like Pitt and Memphis and turn them into national championship contenders. He is everything we need as a coach at Auburn. I only hope that we have the brains to look at him and that he would want to come to Auburn.
To develop #4 a bit further, we need someone who can connect with Auburn’s (albeit limited) basketball history. This is part of the reason why Pearl immediately made a splash with UT fans: his (in)famous orange blazer (worn during games against rivals UK and Vandy) is a tribute to legendary UT basketball coach Ray Mears. The mid-80s nostalgia at Auburn’s SEC Championship reunion showed that there is a palpable longing to be relevant again. On another note, now is a good time for an up-and-coming coach to make the move to the SEC. The national prominence afforded by the contract with ESPN will only help the conference improve and the rising tide that is UK basketball should eventually lift all boats.
It’s pretty simple…big or black.
I think we will get one of these candidates, Mike Anderson, Chuck Person, Either one would in my mind be perfect for the job. Maybe even Tony Barbee fro UTEP.WDE!!!
Here is my top 5 of coaches Auburn Basketball should hire:
1. Brad Stevens, Butler
2. Steve Lavin, ex-UCLA
3. Gregg Marshall, Wichita St.
4. Avery Johnson, ex Dallas Mavs
5. Orlando Antigua, Kentucky assistant
Thoughts??
Didn’t Steve Lavin leave UCLA under not so good of terms?
Bad news. Iowa fired their coach. That’s one higher-profile job that just became open.
Well I think Iowa is a higher-profile job for sure, but I think we have to throw at the coaching candidates the new arena, the 6 new scholarships to be filled and basically the complete potential for a new era of Auburn Basketball (one in which maybe we can actually win…or have more than 20 people show up to a game). That may or may not make the coaching job more attractive.
The only candidate that might have some real overlap in the two candidacy pools is Marshall, I think, now that he’s got a foothold in Valley country. They’re not going to be looking at Stevens and few of Auburn’s other rumored candidates seem like a good fit at Iowa.
But it doesn’t exactly help.
Re: Lavin, I think the only thing that led to his ouster was losing. My biggest problem would be fit–he’s a big city, West Coast guy all the way, born in San Francisco and having spent nearly his whole career at UCLA (he was Harrick’s assistant). Auburn could do worse, but I really think they can do better than a guy who hasn’t coached for a couple of years and got fired from the only gig he’d ever had.
As for Johnson, I can’t imagine he’d even talk to Auburn. He’s an NBA guy all the way to the bone and the League recycles its coaches often enough that he’ll have another job sooner rather than later. Sam Mitchell makes some sense b/c of the Columbus ties, but the General … no way.
Does Orlando Antigua not make perfect sense to anyone else? If not, why? Just like to know so I can get a sense of what everyone else is thinking we need in our new coach.
Can’t speak for everyone else, but for me, there’s two things, chinchilla:
1. Calipari is a snake that leaves a trail of NCAA slime behind wherever he goes. If Antigua was with him at Memphis, then Antigua knew the score there and did nothing. I don’t want a coach that closely tied to NCAA trouble in charge of Auburn’s program. Period. We’ve had enough of that, thanks.
2. As multiple entries on this list make clear, I think Auburn shouldn’t roll the dice on a coach who’s never held a head job before. Maybe Antigua’s got head-coaching chops, maybe he doesn’t; no way to know until he gets hired somewhere, but why should Auburn take that gamble? If we’re going to take a Calipari assistant, why wouldn’t we just take Barbee, who’s already started to prove himself at UTEP?
I just think there’s a difference between a coach who can be successful at a small school and a coach who knows how to rebuild a program. I see what you mean about not wanting a coach associated with Calipari, but at the same time, Antigua has seen how to turn 2 non-basketball schools into championship contenders in Pittsburgh and in Memphis. I think the #1 thing we need to look for is a guy who will promote the program and a guy who has shown that he knows how to completely rebuild a program having done it at multiple schools.
Also if we are going to ignore the fact that Barbee worked with Calipari then there’s not reason why we can’t ignore the fact that Antigua was with Barbee.
I just hope whoever we get can really turn the program around because just as embarrassing as the losing at Auburn is the fact that no one seemse to realize that our school actually has a division 1 basketball team.
CC, I’m not all that high on Barbee either, for the same reasons. I’m just saying that if we’re taking on a Calipari guy, I’d at least rather it be the guy with head coaching experience. I agree that a guy who promotes the program is a necessity, but the way Calipari has angled his way up the coaching ladder whenever possible, I’d expect both Barbee and Antigua to promote like hell while they’re on the Plains … and look for a higher-profile job as soon as one comes available. Again: not what I’m looking for.
As regards small-school coaches not knowing how to rebuild a program … the large majority of the country’s most successful coaches were hired away from mid-majors at one point. Self from Tulsa. Matta from Butler. Coach K from Army. Pearl and Bo Ryan, both from UW-Milwaukee. Jay Wright from Hofstra. Matt Painter from SIU. Ben Howland from Northern freaking Arizona. The “hot assistant” strategy can work, but the “hire the right up-and-comer from a mid-major” strategy works a lot more often. The program has been in the dumps for too long–that much we can agree on–to take any chances. We have to get a guy that we _know_ can build the program and do it the right way, and I just don’t feel like we’d _know_ with a guy learning the head coaching ropes on the fly. AND it’s a guy with a history with the NCAA? Sorry, I know other people are going to feel differently, but if you’re asking me, I say no thanks.
(Lastly … how is Memphis a “non-basketball school”? They’ve been a hoops-first-hoops-second for forever. Why else would Calipari have ever shown up there?)
Ok let me rephrase that by saying how much success did Memphis have before Calipari came along? Some but not near as much. I see what your saying I just don’t know how successful a guy from mid-major schools is going to be. Alabama went to a guy who was very successful in Anthony Grant who really hasn’t done anything to promote the basketball program at Bama. It’s still too early to say if he’s going to be successful or not, but what I want in a coach is a guy who is going to get people into the seats. I’m really not trying to argue here at all I’m just trying to understand what everyone else is thinking when they are looking for a new coach for Auburn.
Memphis is a basketball school. Period. Two trips to the final four before Calipari. Three trips to the elite 8. Seven trips to the sweet 16. Fifteen trips to the Dance.
Overall, they rank in the top 25 of NCAA tournament apperances with 21. Most of my family is from Memphis, and I’ve had numerous relatives that went to school there. They would rank 2nd or 3rd in the SEC in basketball prestige. They’ve been a very successful program for a number of years, even before Calipari set foot in town.
CC, I do hear what you’re saying and I’m also not trying to be argumentative. I’d also like someone who’d bring a little more fire than Grant has, even though that’s just the kind of coach he is. But salesmanship is going to get trumped by winning every time; if the team wins, everything else will take care of itself. If Grant ends up bringing back the Wimp Sanderson days, it doesn’t matter how much he sells the program. It’s a preference, but not a necessity if you ask me.
Re: Memphis, what J.D. said.
Ok in their entire history Calipari has half of their elite eights. You can’t tell me that they didn’t drastically improve under Calipari
The most certainly did drastically improve under Calipari, especially considering the state of their program immediately preceding his hire. That’s just what he does. I’m not debating that; I’m refuting your claims that Memphis was a “non-basketball school” and that they had “some but not much” success before Calipari.
Yeah I should have put it differently then that. Regardless the point I was trying to make is that Antigua has seen how to rebuild teams into championship contenders being with Jamie Dixon at Pitt and with Calipari at Memphis.