The value in coaching continuity amid controversy
Sometimes the best hire is the one that's right in front of you.
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Every spring, the college basketball coaching carousel becomes the hottest topic in the sport. The gossip, the juicy rumors, FLIGHTAWARE SZN, and fans hoping for a fresh start turning on post notifications for the legion of insiders with the hope that the latest news drop will bring good fortune to their program.
In some cases, an athletic director’s job can be almost directly tied to the success of their hires, so it makes sense that they oftentimes want to go big. After all, a splashy hire is one of the best tools around for generating buzz and excitement around a program. That’s why you’ll hear media types harp on the importance of [most pretentious voice possible] winning the press conference. If your fans aren’t flocking to the internet to purchase t-shirts with a cleverly branded phrase that makes a play on the new hire’s name, then what’s the point?
As enticing as it may seem to take a big swing and hope you knock a hire out of the park, sometimes it’s not that complicated. In some scenarios, The Guy might already be on staff within the program.
When Gregg Marshall resigned just before the season amid an investigation into allegations of verbal and physical abuse, Wichita State immediately rose to the top of any list of best available jobs in the sport. It’s a job with great facilities, fan support, and financial heft that would be a highly coveted gig among coaching circles. It would not have been a surprise at all if Wichita State ended up making a big, splashy hire once the season came to an end to usher in a new era for the program.
Instead, the Shockers and athletic director Darron Boatwright announced last week that interim coach Isaac Brown had been named the permanent head coach and given a five-year extension. Despite the circumstances under which he took the reigns of the program, Brown took his lemons and has whipped up a stellar batch of lemonade.
The Shockers are 13-4 on the season and winners of five straight that includes taking down then-No. 12 Houston last Thursday (Brown got the extension the next morning). Wichita State is currently the last team in the field according to Bracket Matrix, which surely exceeds any expectations that could have been had at the start of the season when Brown first took over. The players’ reactions to the news of Brown’s hiring tell you everything you need to know about whether this was the right call or not.
A similar situation is taking place at Texas State.
Picked to finish fifth in their division of the Sun Belt, the Bobcats clinched their first conference title over the weekend after beating Louisiana Monroe for their seventh consecutive win.
Like Wichita State, Texas State’s head coach resigned before the season in the midst of a different controversy. Danny Kaspar — who had been the head coach since the Bobcats joined the Sun Belt in 2013-14 — stepped down during an investigation surrounding his use of racially insensitive language towards his players. Terrence Johnson was named interim head coach shortly after.
Johnson has subsequently knocked it out of the park and exceeded all expectations. As stated above, Johnson led the Bobcats to their first conference title in any league since the program won the 1997 Southland crown. That year also happened to be the last time Texas State went to the NCAA Tournament.
Now, Johnson has yet to receive an offer to become the permanent head coach. But with the success of this season and momentum building from the national media to remove the interim tag, it seems like it might be only a matter of time before Johnson gets the gig. It’s the right move, and if this post-game is any indicator, it would be a hit with the players just like it was in Wichita.
Hiring the right coach doesn’t need to be complicated! Why shell out thousands of dollars to have a search firm tell you that you should hire Standard Candidate X when there’s already the right guy in the chair to begin with?
Especially after a season fraught with unique challenges without even taking into account the circumstances under which Brown and Johnson were named interims. Keeping a locker room united and finding a way to overachieve speaks volumes about the job that the duo has done at their respective schools.
Automatically giving the job to an interim head coach that has a good year is not a one-size-fits-all approach that is guaranteed to work out. Take David Padgett for example. Louisville was always going to bring in a big name following after Rick Pitino’s ouster no matter how well Padgett did. He turned in a mediocre season by Louisville’s standards that ended in the NIT and that was that.
But for every situation like Padgett’s, there could be one like Chris Holtmann. Holtmann famously took over at Butler following Brandon Miller’s abrupt leave of absence before the 2014-15 season. By January of that same season, Holtmann’s interim tag had been removed as he proceeded to take Butler to the NCAA Tournament in each of his three seasons at Hinkle before getting the Ohio State gig.
Isaac Brown and Terrence Johnson’s situations have a similar narrative. Two guys that took over programs after an emotional and tumultuous offseason change have proceeded to exceed expectations when presented with the opportunity. Regardless of whether the seasons end in the NCAA Tournament or elsewhere, Brown and Johnson provide steadying presences to programs that needed them.
It’s obviously too early to anoint them as long-term success stories. Wichita State could ultimately struggle to get back to the level that it was under Marshall that saw the Shockers become a mainstay of March Madness. If Johnson does wind up getting the permanent job, it’s entirely possible that Texas State doesn’t win another conference title for 20+ years.
But you know what? There’s no guarantee that an external hire would do any better.
That’s why this type of move makes the most sense, especially when the coach has already shown that he has the results to back it up. Removing the interim tag for a coach that went .500 in league play and didn’t show signs of being able to maintain momentum in the program is a tougher sell than doing it for a coach that’s on the cusp of an NCAA Tournament birth.
Coaching hires are complicated, heavy decisions. But when there’s already a proven winner on the payroll, they don’t have to be.
Sometimes the right hire is the one that’s right there in front of you in plain sight.
See you next Monday. Enjoy the hoops.
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