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Transition game Coaching changes bring excitement to programs
Updated: Monday November 05, 2001 11:55 AM
By Marc Lancaster, CNNSI.com They say college basketball is a coaches' game. Sure, people still buy tickets and watch television to see the game itself, but the shelf life of the average roster is increasingly brief. Where even the relatively quick four-year stay used to be the norm, now the elite players only bother to stick around for a year or two before heading off to the NBA. The only constant in the college game is the coach -- the person that has the ability to squeeze the same magic out of a sometimes drastically different group of players year in and year out. There aren't all that many Mike Krzyzewskis and Lute Olsons to go around, but if your school has one of those guys, you can enter each year with realistic hopes to contend both in your conference and on a national scale.
From a coach's perspective, there are also a limited number of jobs like that available -- schools with the tradition, support and facilities to compete at the highest level every season. Getting to one of those schools is the ultimate goal, and the coaching ranks have turned into almost a cross between baseball's minor league system and a European soccer setup, where you can move up or down a level based on how well or poorly you do. A prime example is Tubby Smith, who spent 12 years as a college assistant at three schools, then four years as head coach at Tulsa, then another two seasons at Georgia before landing in what he calls a dream job at Kentucky, where he is beginning his fifth season. Each stop along the way has been an improvement in terms of basketball stature, even during his time as an assistant (VCU to South Carolina to Kentucky). Now he has one of the top five jobs in college basketball. It's hard to imagine Smith voluntarily leaving Lexington for another college job, but a tempting NBA offer might eventually pry him loose, thus starting another cycle of top-level coaching turnover in the rush to fill that void. The last two offseasons have seen enough migration that the routes are best traced with a flow chart. Last summer, the key move came very late in the coach-switching game, after Bill Guthridge unexpectedly announced his retirement at North Carolina. Eventually, Matt Doherty moved from Notre Dame to UNC, while up-and-comer Mike Brey stepped in at Notre Dame from his previous job at Delaware. This year was even more tumultuous. Pay attention:
Unless a major conference school is able to lure someone who wasn't active in the college ranks -- see Rick Pitino at Louisville, Bob Knight at Texas Tech or Charlie Spoonhour at UNLV -- the food chain doesn't stop until an assistant coach is hired at a lower-level school. There were 47 coaching changes at Division I schools this year, with the last hire not made until early June. That's far from a record number of moves (there were 66 in 1987), but there were plenty of high-profile changes that should inject some additional excitement into arenas all around the country. A new coach brings a new system, attitude and approach, and almost always a boost to ticket sales and general interest in the program. Will he be the guy to take the team to a conference title, NCAA berth or a trip to the Final Four? Even if he isn't, at least the same old mediocrity will have a different look to it.
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