Before we get into the meat, let’s set the table. Here’s what we do during a coaching search: Every day, I’ll start a thread called the Daily Rumor Mill. I will update the thread throughout the day with everything relevant to Missouri’s coaching search. Sometimes it will be things I am confident are true, sometimes it will be wild ass rumors that are far less likely to be true, sometimes it will be opinion. It will include links to stories we write and links to other stories or tweets of interest related to the coaching search. But a coaching search is the one time where I’ll tell you up front, you’re hearing pretty much everything I hear and I’m not going to verify whether all of it’s true. I’ll give you some thoughts on whether it’s true. Sometimes I may even say “I heard this but I can pretty much tell you it’s false” but this is the one time where I think the best approach is simply to give you guys a peek behind the curtain and share everything that comes to us.
So for today, we’ll start here: There’s no way this decision was made yesterday. The final decision obviously was. But Missouri has been back channeling this for at least a couple of weeks. There have been some initial feelers put out there. That doesn’t necessarily mean they made the actual decision two weeks ago; they probably still could have turned back, but the groundwork has been laid for a little while on this. That’s how it works. You don’t start your coaching search the day you fire your coach.
As for a timetable, there could be discussions with coaches who aren’t playing right now as soon as this weekend. One person told me the early stages of this are likely to take place on Zoom. This is one thing that the pandemic changed that probably won’t go back. Eventually you’re going to get to the point of meeting the final few people in person, but you can do the introductory stuff via a video call. This is how Mizzou’s AD search went and I’m confident it will be how the coaching search will go as well. I would imagine coaches who are waiting on the NCAA Tournament aren’t going to be hopping on a Zoom call with Mizzou today, but who knows? It’s much easier to carve out 30 minutes for a call than it would be to have someone fly in to meet you and go through an in-person interview. I think the virtual aspect might make it easier and quicker to get through the initial stages of a search.
As far as real candidates, the truth is, right now, everybody is mostly guessing. The national lists you’re seeing are including Grant McCasland, Jerome Tang, Kim English, Darian DeVries, Matt McMahon, Todd Golden, Niko Medved, etc. I think all of those guys could be candidates. They’re on my hot board. But just because you’re seeing those names posted a lot, don’t take it to mean those are the leading candidates or really even candidates at all. Right now, we’re all putting out names that make sense. And especially nationally, the view of Mizzou basketball is “Who the hell are they going to get? They haven’t mattered for a decade or more.” The truth is, national people don’t really think about Missouri basketball. And they’re certainly not going to think Missouri can pull a coach from anywhere but a mid-major. They may very well end up being right. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t read these lists (or even ours) and say “Well, we’re all screwed based on this list.” We don’t know. We’re guessing. Some of those guesses are going to be right, but some certainly aren’t.
Every search starts with a couple “It probably won’t happen, but you have to try” attempts. No school starts a search saying “You know what we want? A young guy most people haven’t heard of who hasn’t really proven himself yet.” The goal at the start of a coaching search is pretty much always a sitting high major coach. That’s not just true at Mizzou; it’s true everywhere. So who are those guys?
So for today, we’ll start here: There’s no way this decision was made yesterday. The final decision obviously was. But Missouri has been back channeling this for at least a couple of weeks. There have been some initial feelers put out there. That doesn’t necessarily mean they made the actual decision two weeks ago; they probably still could have turned back, but the groundwork has been laid for a little while on this. That’s how it works. You don’t start your coaching search the day you fire your coach.
As for a timetable, there could be discussions with coaches who aren’t playing right now as soon as this weekend. One person told me the early stages of this are likely to take place on Zoom. This is one thing that the pandemic changed that probably won’t go back. Eventually you’re going to get to the point of meeting the final few people in person, but you can do the introductory stuff via a video call. This is how Mizzou’s AD search went and I’m confident it will be how the coaching search will go as well. I would imagine coaches who are waiting on the NCAA Tournament aren’t going to be hopping on a Zoom call with Mizzou today, but who knows? It’s much easier to carve out 30 minutes for a call than it would be to have someone fly in to meet you and go through an in-person interview. I think the virtual aspect might make it easier and quicker to get through the initial stages of a search.
As far as real candidates, the truth is, right now, everybody is mostly guessing. The national lists you’re seeing are including Grant McCasland, Jerome Tang, Kim English, Darian DeVries, Matt McMahon, Todd Golden, Niko Medved, etc. I think all of those guys could be candidates. They’re on my hot board. But just because you’re seeing those names posted a lot, don’t take it to mean those are the leading candidates or really even candidates at all. Right now, we’re all putting out names that make sense. And especially nationally, the view of Mizzou basketball is “Who the hell are they going to get? They haven’t mattered for a decade or more.” The truth is, national people don’t really think about Missouri basketball. And they’re certainly not going to think Missouri can pull a coach from anywhere but a mid-major. They may very well end up being right. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t read these lists (or even ours) and say “Well, we’re all screwed based on this list.” We don’t know. We’re guessing. Some of those guesses are going to be right, but some certainly aren’t.
Every search starts with a couple “It probably won’t happen, but you have to try” attempts. No school starts a search saying “You know what we want? A young guy most people haven’t heard of who hasn’t really proven himself yet.” The goal at the start of a coaching search is pretty much always a sitting high major coach. That’s not just true at Mizzou; it’s true everywhere. So who are those guys?
