Hoopraker

If the rumors and whispers are to be believed it is not inconceivable that there will be four new head coaches in next year’s Big Ten. Adding to the positions in Minneapolis (now filled) and Ann Arbor, there is now confirmation of a vacancy in Iowa City as well as speculation about Bill Carmody’s interest in returning to his previous employer in Division IAA. And as of this afternoon, Tubby Smith is said to be ready to don a goosedown parka and become the new face of Minnesota basketball.

Carmody’s Smarter Than That, Right?
While the intrigue in Evanston has already been denied internally by Northwestern, there has been enough intimation in the past days to suggest Carmody may have at least been putting out feelers to his former bosses in Princeton. When you consider Northwestern A.D. Mark Murphy has issued a tacit two year postseason or bust ultimatum, it’s possible Carmody is looking for exits instead of rising to the challenge.

Certainly, there have been more than a few times in his Northwestern tenure that Carmody has put forth a defeated, low energy image. Furthermore, his slow, shaky work on the recruiting trail may be reflective of a temperamental unsuitedness for the sales and marketing challenges of resurrecting a program as long dormant as Northwestern’s.

But a return to the Ivy League would constitute a huge admission of failure and a professional embarrassment for a coach who seven years ago was one of the hotter national coaching prospects. And it’s hard to imagine Carmody wouldn’t still be more than committed to the good fight. Not with the promise of Kid Coble and Jeff Ryan, the supposed breakthrough of his 2007 class, his redshirt Croatians, and the evident progress his assistant Tavaras Hardy is showing as a recruiter of Chicagoland.

Surely Carmody knows how close he is to getting his program over the hump of five hundred and into perennial NIT or better basketball. He has to know a marriage of his perfect fit Princeton system to a bottomless Chicago talent pool is one other Big Ten coaches are loathe to face. It must be clear to him that it’s just a matter of continuing the dogged work on the trail that Hardy has begun and maximizing his current roster’s promise. It’s all right there for him to seize, it’s all so very attainable. And if he does so, he is the kind of coach who can and probably would spend the rest of his career at Northwestern mentoring smart, winning, high integrity basketball. Carmody is so close he has to taste it. Right?

Alford Flees To Desert
Facing a one-year NCAA or gone ultimatum from his athletic director and an already grumpy fan base, Steve Alford has apparently decided flight is better than fight. Given his team was youthful and by all objective measurements rebuilding this year, he deserves credit for getting them to a 9-7 fourth place tie in conference and for recruiting one of the conference’s best newcomers in Tyler Smith.

The problem is he should’ve been rebuilding from at least Sweet Sixteen momentum instead of first round exit fallout. His Brunner, Horner, Hanson senior led team entered last year’s NCAA tournament as a deserving three seed and with a promising bracket for advancement. The first round loss to fourteen seeded Northwestern State was devastating and brought out the fangs in Iowa City. So when this year’s team went 10-6 in preconference with a blowout loss to Drake and dumps to down year teams in Arizona State and Northern Iowa to the fangs were added snarls. When they were spurned by the NIT, the dog went from snarl to yanking against its chain.

And all signs suggest Athletic Director Gary Barta’s grip on the chain was loose to slipping. The Pierre Pierce debacle and a general and perhaps deserved reputation of underachievement as a recruiter and bench strategist had Alford on a strict timetable with his boss. And despite Tyler Smith’s huge upside, next year’s Hawkeyes were no sure bet for improvement. Alford saw it all, called his former coach in Lubbock, and engineered a midnight escape.

Alford’s alleged comments about wanting to go to a school that put a greater value on basketball are as self-serving as they are inaccurate. Alford needs to go quietly because comments such as these, if they are true, point to a troubling level of denial that will not serve him well in Albuquerque or elsewhere. It is his failings as a coach and program leader that put him in the tough spot in Iowa and have him making an end run for the desert. The proud fans of Iowa would be quick to corroborate the same. The University of Iowa is place where basketball is far from an ugly stepchild.

Alford was surely stung by watching his dream Indiana job pass him by. The speculation about his interest in returning to coach his alma mater was too widespread to be unfounded. What program likes a coach with a constantly straying eye? Ultimately, Alford’s departure has the look of a win-win for both parties. Alford gets a nice salary, less scrutiny, and weaker competition while Iowa is afforded a great opportunity to bring in a coach equal to its proud tradition. One hopes they arrive at someone who, unlike Alford and Lute Olson, considers Iowa City a place to stay rather than a stepping stone.

Beware Tubby
Maybe Tubby Smith is the kind of marquee name that Joel Maturi felt he just couldn’t pass up. Maybe he can bring the kind of high profile that will provide a surge in recruiting and attendance. He is from all reports a class act who despite a fishbowl existence in Lexington never succumbed to the seedier temptations of his profession. He coaches defense and balanced team basketball. He’s fifty-five years old and has several years of coaching left in him.

But before everyone celebrates this as an absolute coup for poor, lowly Minnesota, isn’t it possible to think they might’ve done better? That they might’ve found someone without a National Championship but with a Big Ten or Minnesota bloodline rather than an SEC centric one, someone with a career on the rise rather than one in stasis or decline, someone who has the hunger and energy required to bring the program back and lock down the state’s recruiting rather than someone who appears to be hungry for an easier time of things?

And about that easier time of things. While the pressure in Minneapolis won’t be as out of proportion as what a Kentucky head coach experiences, the pressure on the basketball floor will be equal, perhaps greater. The Big Ten is already a tough sled and with solid hires in Iowa and Ann Arbor stands to get tougher and deeper. And bringing a program back is itself a stiff challenge that will require a tireless, go getter effort.

Does Tubby have the stuff and werewithal to go into midwestern living rooms and win kids against the likes of Bo Ryan? Suffice to say, he is well advised to jettison some of his longstanding assistants in favor of one or more who know Big Ten country. Because as of today, he’s got the look of a tired fish out of water.

For the sake of the Minnesota program and its fans, here’s hoping their A.D. hasn’t stuck them with someone who is wrongly underestimating the challenges he will face. While at first blush this hire seems to be big named and flattering to Minnesota in the short term, it may be a wholesale failure of imagination and a disservice.

Posted by DJ Elsass on Thursday, March 22nd, 2007 at 9:12 pm.