I'm going to start off telling you today's entry is going to contain a whole lot of speculation on my part. The truth is, that's what is mainly available right now. We're confident former Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey and former Missouri Head Coach Cuonzo Martin are candidates with traction for this job. That does not mean Michael Kelly is not strongly considering other candidates. He certainly is.
I think the circle of people who really know what's going on in this search is very, very small. In fact, it may not even be a circle. It may just be a triangle consisting of Kelly, Lee Butler and Rhea Law. Even if there are people outside of those three with insight, they really aren't sharing it. At this point in searches, you usually at least see some agent planted leaks with national media. We have seen one – Mike Brey.
Anyway, on to my read on what's happening:
There's a natural ebb and flow to almost every coaching search. Here's how it goes:
Day 1-3: "Take some home run swings." We've saw that as Rick Pitino’s name clanged around in the discussion of the USF basketball search. But that is over now.
Day 4-7: "It looks like a list of rising young head coaches, someone with connections to the school, and some head coaches who were fired or stepped down." This is where people start to assume the home run swings didn't connect and a lengthy search is more likely. We entered this stage a few days ago.
Day 8-11: The first weekend of the NCAA tournament is over and the season of most of the targets has ended. Zoom interviews and in-person interviews begin to happen. Also, a new name that none of us are talking about that is going to surprise everyone when it leaks often comes out. We are now in this stage of the search.
Day 11-15: "What the hell are we doing? Are we even going to hire anybody or are we just going to let every other school in America fill its coaching vacancy while we sit here and let the program rot and hire the last man standing?" This is the panic stage.
Somewhere around day 15: They hire a coach, most often probably one that has been mentioned as a potential candidate all along, but every now and then a complete shock.
I’m confident that USF has started talking to candidates on the phone and possibly even virtually. If it is going to be either Brey or Martin, all you're really doing is seeing if either of them will accept your offer or if there is an offer either of them will accept. You don't need to go through a full interview and ask them for a six-step plan to fix your program. They are established coaches who have already won at a higher level. Obviously there needs to be a meeting of some sort just to make sure all the personalities mesh and everything, but the interview process for a proven high major coach should be different than the one for a mid-major guy on the way up. You don't need to put him through the same steps you do the younger, less proven guy.
Bob Richey: His season is over, he makes some sense to me, we have heard his name frequently during the search, but he inherited a very healthy Furman program from Niko Medved. A program that Richey had been part of for several years as the top assistant. He has never worked outside of South Carolina. Is he a turnaround guy?
Amir Abdur-Rahim: I heard his name early in this process but I don’t feel he is as involved as Brey or Martin but I know he is at least being considered. His season ended Friday.
Richie Riley: Pretty much the same as Abdur-Rahim. His season ended in his conference tournament final.
Bob Marlin: He is a name that none of us were talking about until Monday afternoon. Marlin is currently a free agent as he was in the final year of his Louisiana contract. His AD announced that he plans to offer an extension, but that only happened because Louisiana made the tournament. I’m told that he is very interested in the USF job and we confirmed that he is a USF target.
Chris Capko: He is very happy at USC but he wants the USF job badly. We might not hear him linked with other jobs the cycle and national reporters may not even put Capko and USF together but there is mutual interest. At this point it seems most of the interest is Capko’s in USF.
Charlton “CY” Young: This is a name I’ve heard quite a bit, even before the Bulls season was over. It makes sense that USF will look at him. I don't have any info, yet, but now that Missouri’s season is over I'd bet he gets a phone call, a zoom and possibly an in-person interview.
Justin Gainey: Similar to Young, this is a name I’ve heard quite a bit, especially in the last four days and we confirmed that he is a USF target. Other programs are interested in Gainey too. Tennessee advanced to the Sweet 16 so it could be a while before any in-person meeting with USF takes place.
Barring a new candidate popping up out of nowhere, I believe USF’s next coach will be one of the coaches in this Rumor Mill. But I need to stress, that's based more on logic and my opinion than it is any real concrete information at this point.
Richey, Marlin, Riley and Abdur-Rahim are at schools where there’s no Rivals site. Brey and Martin are former coaches. That makes it a little more difficult for me to find sources on the other side of things to get info. I’m pretty certain that if I call someone at the USC site and mention Capko, the response I get will be “Who?”
We might start to get some agent leaks to the media to get their guy's name out there either to promote him for the job or get his name out there to drive interest in other jobs (or both). We'll do our best to see what we can dig up
I think the circle of people who really know what's going on in this search is very, very small. In fact, it may not even be a circle. It may just be a triangle consisting of Kelly, Lee Butler and Rhea Law. Even if there are people outside of those three with insight, they really aren't sharing it. At this point in searches, you usually at least see some agent planted leaks with national media. We have seen one – Mike Brey.
Anyway, on to my read on what's happening:
There's a natural ebb and flow to almost every coaching search. Here's how it goes:
Day 1-3: "Take some home run swings." We've saw that as Rick Pitino’s name clanged around in the discussion of the USF basketball search. But that is over now.
Day 4-7: "It looks like a list of rising young head coaches, someone with connections to the school, and some head coaches who were fired or stepped down." This is where people start to assume the home run swings didn't connect and a lengthy search is more likely. We entered this stage a few days ago.
Day 8-11: The first weekend of the NCAA tournament is over and the season of most of the targets has ended. Zoom interviews and in-person interviews begin to happen. Also, a new name that none of us are talking about that is going to surprise everyone when it leaks often comes out. We are now in this stage of the search.
Day 11-15: "What the hell are we doing? Are we even going to hire anybody or are we just going to let every other school in America fill its coaching vacancy while we sit here and let the program rot and hire the last man standing?" This is the panic stage.
Somewhere around day 15: They hire a coach, most often probably one that has been mentioned as a potential candidate all along, but every now and then a complete shock.
I’m confident that USF has started talking to candidates on the phone and possibly even virtually. If it is going to be either Brey or Martin, all you're really doing is seeing if either of them will accept your offer or if there is an offer either of them will accept. You don't need to go through a full interview and ask them for a six-step plan to fix your program. They are established coaches who have already won at a higher level. Obviously there needs to be a meeting of some sort just to make sure all the personalities mesh and everything, but the interview process for a proven high major coach should be different than the one for a mid-major guy on the way up. You don't need to put him through the same steps you do the younger, less proven guy.
Bob Richey: His season is over, he makes some sense to me, we have heard his name frequently during the search, but he inherited a very healthy Furman program from Niko Medved. A program that Richey had been part of for several years as the top assistant. He has never worked outside of South Carolina. Is he a turnaround guy?
Amir Abdur-Rahim: I heard his name early in this process but I don’t feel he is as involved as Brey or Martin but I know he is at least being considered. His season ended Friday.
Richie Riley: Pretty much the same as Abdur-Rahim. His season ended in his conference tournament final.
Bob Marlin: He is a name that none of us were talking about until Monday afternoon. Marlin is currently a free agent as he was in the final year of his Louisiana contract. His AD announced that he plans to offer an extension, but that only happened because Louisiana made the tournament. I’m told that he is very interested in the USF job and we confirmed that he is a USF target.
Chris Capko: He is very happy at USC but he wants the USF job badly. We might not hear him linked with other jobs the cycle and national reporters may not even put Capko and USF together but there is mutual interest. At this point it seems most of the interest is Capko’s in USF.
Charlton “CY” Young: This is a name I’ve heard quite a bit, even before the Bulls season was over. It makes sense that USF will look at him. I don't have any info, yet, but now that Missouri’s season is over I'd bet he gets a phone call, a zoom and possibly an in-person interview.
Justin Gainey: Similar to Young, this is a name I’ve heard quite a bit, especially in the last four days and we confirmed that he is a USF target. Other programs are interested in Gainey too. Tennessee advanced to the Sweet 16 so it could be a while before any in-person meeting with USF takes place.
Barring a new candidate popping up out of nowhere, I believe USF’s next coach will be one of the coaches in this Rumor Mill. But I need to stress, that's based more on logic and my opinion than it is any real concrete information at this point.
Richey, Marlin, Riley and Abdur-Rahim are at schools where there’s no Rivals site. Brey and Martin are former coaches. That makes it a little more difficult for me to find sources on the other side of things to get info. I’m pretty certain that if I call someone at the USC site and mention Capko, the response I get will be “Who?”
We might start to get some agent leaks to the media to get their guy's name out there either to promote him for the job or get his name out there to drive interest in other jobs (or both). We'll do our best to see what we can dig up
