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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 all that's really available right now. We're confident Baylor assistant Jerome Tang and George Mason head coach Kim English are candidates with traction for this job. Beyond that, there's nobody that we can reliably say we believe Mizzou is strongly considering. That does not mean they are not strongly considering other candidates. They certainly are. It's just that we don't know for sure who those candidates are.
That's a result of Mun Choi cracking down on the leaks around Mizzou since the search for Eli Drinkwitz. There were a lot of people around Mizzou, most importantly Choi, who were not pleased at the public nature of the way that search played out. The result is a whole bunch of people who absolutely aren't talking. First of all, 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 Choi, Desiree Reed-Francois and Eddie Fogler. But 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 haven't even seen that here. It makes me wonder if confidentiality is being stressed to candidates even more strongly in this search than it is in most of them.
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: "Money is no object and they're going to take some home run swings." We've seen that with mentions of Dana Altman, Danny Hurley and with people trying to identify good high major coaches who Mizzou might be able to make a run at that, on the surface, don't really make much sense.
Day 4-7: "It looks like the usual lists of rising mid-major guys and coaches with connections to the school are probably pretty accurate." This is where people start to assume the home run swings didn't connect and the search is more likely. This is the stage we're entering now.
Day 8-9: "I think there's something else going on here. I think they've got some big fish candidate on the line that none of us are talking about that is going to blow everybody away when they announce it." This can also be called the wishful thinking stage.
Day 10-13: "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 14: 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.
So, like I said, we're entering stage 2 right now. And I'm right there with you guys. I believe Missouri may have looked at some big names. But Hurley has a $10 million buyout and a better job and that simply makes zero sense. Altman is 63 and has a better job and has a little Mike Anderson/Jamie Dixon in him in that his name comes up for almost every major job that opens (side note: I'm somewhat shocked Dixon's name hasn't come up at all).
The truth is, I'm not at all sure there is a "big fish" here. As I said, the one thing I'm pretty confident in is that Missouri has started talking to candidates, most likely virtually. If there's a guy like Altman where there's serious traction, I think we know about it no later than Thursday. Look at the way things went with Mike White and Georgia. No public mention, but it pops up and is done on the fourth day of the search. Because by the time you're talking to Mike White, all you're really doing is seeing if he'll accept your offer or if there is an offer he will accept. You don't need to go through a full interview and ask him for his six-step plan to fix your program. He's an established coach who has already won at this level. If you're Georgia, the only real question is "What can we do to get you to take the job?" 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.
So, in short, if Altman or a similar candidate is real, I think this thing is over in the next couple of days. And my personal feeling right now is that those things aren't really real. If they are, I'll admit I am wrong and tip my cap to Mizzou for a job very, very well done. Oregon plays tonight in the NIT, for what it's worth.
I think what's more realistic is that we're looking at a candidate pool very similar to the one most of us put out there at the start. Like I said, I'm confident English and Tang are involved. Here are the other guys that would make sense to me with a quick note on all:
Mark Pope: He makes sense to me, but I don't have any indication that he's necessarily involved. Nobody has really brought his name up to me. That doesn't mean he isn't involved. Like I said, we're not dealing with a ton of information. BYU plays Wednesday night in the NIT.
Grant McCasland: I talked to someone that covers North Texas yesterday and he told me he talked to McCasland, who "gave no indication" he was involved with other jobs. Now, I'm not sure if that means that the guy has information he's not involved or if McCasland just didn't volunteer anything saying he is. North Texas plays tonight.
Todd Golden: This is a name I've heard quite a bit. It makes sense that Missouri will look at him. I don't have proof of it, but if I had to guess, I'd bet he's on the list. They play Thursday night.
Matt McMahon: Pretty much the same as Golden. They play Thursday night.
Darian DeVries: I've heard his name a few times. I don't feel as strongly he's involved as McMahon and Golden, but I think he's probably at least being looked at. Drake plays Saturday in the CBI.
Dennis Gates: Put him with McCasland and Pope in that he makes sense, but I don't have anything to tell me he's necessarily involved. Nobody's really mentioned him to me. They play tonight in the NIT.
There are eight names there in total. If I was asked to put a wager, I'd put it on Missouri's next coach being one of these eight and give you the field (I've probably forgotten to include someone that you guys are going to bring up and if so I'll address it). But I need to stress, that's based more on logic and my opinion after following a number of coaching searches than it is any real concrete information.
The tough thing here is that these coaches are at schools where there's no Rivals site and not a ton of local coverage. That makes it a little more difficult for me to find sources on the other side of things to get info. When it's locked up at Mizzou, sometimes you can get information from the other side. But in these cases, that's not all that easy to do. I would think 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 in the next few days, but I'm not expecting this to end at least until guys like Golden and McMahon are eliminated from the NCAA Tournament and could have substantive talks with Missouri.
