Well after two very long weeks, Brad Bates finally hired former Ohio University head coach Jim Christian to be the next head man for Boston College men's basketball team. Unfortunately the excitement Bates has regarding this hire is not mutual amongst fans and alums. While I think everyone agrees Steve Donahue had to be let go as BC's coach, I am not sure Christian is that much of an upgrade. This was BC's opportunity to make a splash hire, but in my mind this hire was a complete flop. I am not saying Christian will fail as the head coach, but I don't think he's the guy who will take the team to the next level and make the Eagles a constant fixture in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
The question now becomes who could have Bates hired for this to have been considered a home run? In my mind it would have been Jay Wright. With Buzz Williams leaving Marquette in the now weakened Big East for a lower level basketball school in Virginia Tech, I thought Bates could have used a similar tactic to lure Wright from Villanova to BC. I know the chances of Wright, a Pennsylvania native who currently coaches at a school where basketball is the #1 sport by a landslide, leaving Philly for Boston would have been slim, but I was hoping Bates could have made a financial offer that he couldn't refuse. Also, as I joked on Twitter I was hoping Bates would let Wright know that the BC head basketball coach gets free suits at Eastern Clothing of Watertown. Ed Cooley, the former BC assistant and current Providence head coach, was another guy I thought Bates could have convinced to leave the Big East and come to the ACC. While Cooley is a Providence native and currently makes $2 million annually as the Friars head coach, I was really hoping that the BC brass would have realized that this was the time to open up their checkbook to get a guy like Cooley or Wright to come to Chestnut Hill. If BC wants to take their basketball program to the next level they have to make a commitment financially both in terms of the salary of the head coach and upgrades to the practice facility. The other name that was thrown around that would have been a home run hire was Ben Howland, but the chances of him leaving California for the East Coast was very unlikely, and now that the Cal job is open I think it's only a matter of days until he is announced as the new coach of the Bears.
My one huge gripe with the Christian hire isn't necessarily that he came from the MAC, a conference where he has had great success both at Kent State and Ohio, but when he had a chance to coach on a bigger stage like when he was at TCU, he didn't do much to prove that he could coach at an elite level. I would rather have had Bates hire a guy who was an unknown than to hire a guy whom we know what his ceiling is mostly going to be. That is why Joe Dooley, the current head coach at Florida Gulf Coast and who was considered another finalist in the BC coaching search, would have made me more excited. Dooley came within one win of having the Florida Gulf Coast back in the NCAA Tournament, and having spent the previous 10 years as an assistant at Kansas under Bill Self he became known as one of the top recruiters,including getting many kids from the East Coast to go to school in Lawrence.
The other direction I wouldn't have minded Bates going was giving a long time assistant at one of college basketball's elite programs a chance. For instance Jeff Boals, a long time assistant for Thad Matta at Ohio State, to me would have made more sense than Christian. Matta's assistants, including Archie and Sean Miller, have had great success as head coaches, and I am confident Boals will make a great head coach one day. Ironically Boals, an Ohio University alum, appears to be the front runner to replace Christian at Ohio. Other programs I wouldn't have minded Bates taking a look at assistant coaches are Michigan State and Michigan. Tom Izzo and John Beilein have been the models for consistency in college basketball and I don't think it would have hurt to have taken a look at some of their assistant coaches to see if anyone was ready to take their careers to the next level.
My final point I want to touch upon in this Rant is to compare Christian to a coach I think BC fans should look at for a comparison. This coach is Brad Brownell, the current head coach of Clemson. Both Brownell and Christian are relatively the same age, and both coaches came from coaching mid major schools in Ohio prior to making the jump to the ACC. Brownell made the NCAA Tournament in his first year as the head coach of the Tigers in the 2010-11 season, and after two tough years he finally had the Tigers competitive again, leading them to the NIT Semifinals and finishing with a record of 23-13. Brownell appears to have rebounded well from his recent struggles and if he can get Clemson to the NCAA Tournament next year it will give me hope that Christian will have similar success at BC. If Christian can convince Hanlan, Rahon and Anderson all to stay, which is still a huge question mark, BC could have a potentially good season if they can play better defense and be more consistent on offense. However, expect after next season for the Eagles to have a huge drop off, as they will lose just about everyone who is part of their current core, which leads me to my next point.
Jim Christian has to hire a staff that has experience not only in recruiting elite players, but recruiting players in New England. One of Donahue's failures as a head coach was he surrounded himself, after the departure of Joe Jones to BU, with a staff that was made up of coaches with only Ivy League and Division III coaching experience. If you watched the NCAA Tournament this year you would have seen numerous players who came from the New England area, yet didn't even consider going to BC. When Steve Addazio, another coach who came from the MAC, took over the BC football program he stated he wanted to build a fence around New England in terms of recruiting and so far he has lived up to his word. Having coached in Ohio and Texas for the majority of his career, Christian does not appear to have much experience in recruiting the Northeast and because of that it is key that he finds an assistant who has this experience. One potential assistant coach whose name has been thrown around is current BC basketball radio analyst and former BC player Danya Abrams who was part of the famed Elite 8 team in 1994. While Abrams does not have the coaching experience needed to be a lead assistant, I think it would be good for the team to have a former player on the staff. Also, having called BC games on the radio for the past couple of seasons Abrams is knowledgeable about the current team and could be helpful to Christian in that regard.
Needless to say I am not thrilled with this hire. I was really hoping BC would have hired a prominent coach, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. I hope Christian is able to shut up the critics, but I am very skeptical that he will. As I tweeted yesterday, I will still support and root for Christian and the BC basketball team, but I am worried there won't be much to cheer for. On the bright side, at least there is one team that plays in Conte Forum that always gives us something to cheer about, and I am looking forward to see them play next Thursday as they go for the school's sixth national title.
No comments:
Post a Comment