re: Who are realistic replacements for Basketball?

Rick Pitino

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No doubt that Wade is the only coach who would inject energy into the program

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Really? Not a single other coach?

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Really? Not a single other coach?[/quoteof course

Unless you want to get into fantasyland and say someone like Billy Donovan.

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Tennessee did it years ago

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Barnes had long worn out his welcome at Texas

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so did Auburn

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Pearl had a show cause

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Ole Miss

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hired a guy who lost the Texas job because he strangled his wife

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TAM

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credit

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Alabama

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Oats was coaching at Buffalo, his first college basketball head coaching job, and had been to the tourney as many times as McMahon had with Murray State.

Will Wade would fit in with some of the coaches mentioned on this list, but LSU isn't hiring the guy they fired three years ago. Another program will reap the rewards of that mistake.

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McMillan is interesting. I want to do a Lester Earl-esque deep dive on him over the weekend.

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He's 41 and a native of Birmingham. Was the HC at Mountain Brook High School (in Birmingham area) for several years with great success. He coached Trendon Watford, among others. He moved from HS to the Samford job. He quickly (by year two) rebuilt a moribund program into an annual 20+ game winner. He's finished in the top 3 of the SoCon each of the last 4 years, taking Samford to the NCAA Tournament last year as a 13 seed. But for a bad call late, Samford likely beats Kansas in last year's tournament. This year's team wasn't as good as last year's group and they were bounced by Furman in the SoCon Tournament (Bob Richey of Furman is another potential candidate). However, they did lose some key players from last year's team (one transferred to Miami; another to K-State)

His style of play is frenetic...on both ends of the court. They press full court on defense and play fast offensively. The style is somewhat similar to Oats at Alabama, but he would have to tweak it to be successful in a major conf. league. His college coach was Duane Reboul who is from Nola. Reboul serves as an advisor on staff. From an LSU perspective, Reboul was an assistant coach in the 1980's at Mississippi St. with John Brady. That would be the connection to LSU.

HS to D-1 (mid major) is a big jump. But he's handled it with ease. Mid-major to high-major (like the SEC) is maybe a bigger jump. That would be the concern. However, given the Alabama, Auburn, and even Tennessee jobs are unlikely to open up anytime soon, I think McMillian would take the LSU job. He'd also probably be a candidate at Ole Miss if they lose Beard.

Slam dunk hire? No. But definitely intriguing

If Woodward cared about men's basketball, he would already have Wade on a verbal agreement to be put in writing after McNeese loses in the big dance. To the Mcmen, the big dance is the tournament that McMahon hasn't sniffed since he has been at LSU.

I said Jai Lucas a few months ago among others as an example of a prototype we should look at (young assistants who are proven recruiters at blue blood schools)
Got downvoted to Hell. He just accepted the job at Miami. “Realistic” isn’t the same for everyone. You’re conversing with 95% morons on this app who probably couldn’t name 10 active coaches.

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Odom at VCU is probably the top mid-major coach. He was the coach at UMBC when they beat Virginia as a 16-seed. He left UMBC and went to the tournament with Utah State, and now at VCU, he has them atop the Atlantic 10 in year 2.

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I’ve been following him. He’s a really good coach. Could see him making the jump to a bigger school very soon.

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Our next coach needs to specialize in identifying undervalued raw talent and player development.

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This is the last thing they should specialize in. They need to Major in in-game adjustments. Recognizing & exploiting weaknesses while disguising our own, on the fly. They need to minor in recruiting. Not signing below average players & trying to coach them into being decent as 5th year seniors. If he doesn’t win he won’t even make it that far into his contract. Be good at recruiting the best players you target similar to our previous coach.

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LSU basketball will never have financial resources compared to most of the SEC.

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This is just not true. Football (although it’s a different program) just reported 26 million. The highest annual budget in the SEC (allegedly) was 5 million. I’m sure LSU can find that if they wanted to.

If he is done in the NBA, Billy Donovan.