Texas basketball always seems like a perfect job for someone who coaches Division I men’s basketball. Each neighborhood has high-key prospects. There appears to be more money than is contained in Citibank.
The pressure to win is present, it doesn’t just overwhelm them, because football still attracts the attention of most fans. Oh, and Austin is such a lovely city.
It hasn’t really worked all the way, though. Rick Barnes reached 16 NCAA tournaments in 17 years, but only one Final Four. Tom Penders reached eight NCAA tournaments in 10 years, but never advanced to the Elite Eight. Shaka Smart reached three NCAA tournaments in five seasons, erased a possible fourth bid in her other season by the COVID epidemic, and did not win an NCAA game.
So is Texas Eden basketball so many guess it to be?
It could be the one who decides that the Longhorns can now get down to replace Smart that he has accepted a job as the next Marquette head coach. UT’s biggest bet would be to convince some coaches on a similar level that the great work he does now is the site of so much success, may be terrible but Texas is not.
Will the top coaches in the country be able to resist the attraction of Texas?
Texas basketball coaching candidates
Chris Beard, Texas Tech.
Longhorn has watched him closely, at work. Since coming to Lubbock for the 2016–17 season, he owns an 8-5 record against UT. They have seen him in the final four and the national championship game. He can certainly receive a six-year, $ 26.75 million contract after the team’s appearance in the 2019 NCAA Championship game.
Is it worth the move, though? Maybe. He just finished a season in which he had no big man like Jericho Sims or Kai Jones. The Longhorns had four of them, including elite fresher Greg Brown and useful veteran Royce Hamm. The ability to attract that level of talent can be irreversible.
John Beilein, BTN Analyst
After leaving his position as head coach of Michigan to capture the Cleveland Cavaliers, and did not go well even after coaching at the NBA level, Beilein has been analyzing the game at studios and sports telecasts. He is considered one of the best offensive minds in the game and led Michigan to NCAA title games in 2013 and 2018, and to the Big Ten tournament titles in 2017 and 2018. At the age of 68, he has coached at the Richmond, Richmond, NCAA Tournament. West Virginia and Michigan. There is no doubt that he has turned down other opportunities waiting for the right opportunity to re-enter coaching. This will be a situation in which he cannot decline.
Dana Altman, Oregon
One of the most skilled coaches in college basketball, Altman built a mid-major powerhouse in Crayton, stayed for 16 years despite several offers – he also accepted an Arkansas job, went through a press conference and Then changed his mind – and eventually accepted a 2010 chance to coach at Oregon. He has made eight NCAA tournaments there and reached the final four of 2017. Some are better pure coaches, and his personality will work well in a place where basketball coaches mostly get attention if he loses too many times. But will he leave Phil Knight’s close union behind?
Scott Drew, boiler
Two decades ago, the choice between Baylor and UT would have been laughable. When Drew arrived in 2003, Boiler recorded only four NCAA tournament appearances. They have gone from nine, including an Elite Eight appearance in 2010 and a trip to this year’s No. 1 seed and (so far) Sweet 16. Another definitive tournament trip – that too, at the No. 1 seed level – was eliminated by the pandemic last March. ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla, a leading media authority on Big 12 basketball, called Drawer’s work in the boiler possibly the greatest reconstruction work in the history of the game. Drew Does He Want To Abandon Made In Baylor? He is just 50 years old, and he may have been to the Beers as to what Jay Wright has become in Villenova, or Jim Boeheim in Araucus. If he is going to leave, it will probably be this year – either for Indiana or Austin. Living in Waco seems like an option that would be difficult to defeat.
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Mike Boynton, Oklahoma State
The school, which once lost Brad Underwood to Illinois due to his less impressive salary, struck another deal at Boynton, which did a tremendous job with the Cowboys this season. He met uber-freshman Cade Cunningham the most and built a versatile, dynamic, connected team around him. His contract is for six years, $ 11.5 million – good work if you can get it, but what if you can get more? If Texas wants him, Boynton can get a lot more.
Royal Ivy, Brooklyn Nets Assistant
Due to the success of Juwan Howard in Michigan, a former star appears to be less of a gamble than he was in the NBA. Ivey played 10 seasons in the league and has served on the staff of the Thunder, Knicks and Nets. Ivey debuted for All-American TJ Ford as the Final Four team of Texas for the 2003 Final Team and topped 1,000 career points.
Eric Musselman, Arkansas
There is not much rivalry between the Longhorns and the Razorbacks as Arkansas left the Southwest Conference for the SEC in 1991, but it could heat it up. Musselman has been a smash hit in Arkansas and the team in its second season in the Sweet 16, but he may be able to make Austin’s downfall difficult. Musselman has an NBA background and has reached the first three in the last four NCAA Tournaments, Nevada, and has two Sweet 16 appearances in that stretch. A final four is in reach, though, and if the Hogs pull that off, it can be difficult to walk away from that degree of success.
Calvin Sampson, Houston
Calvin’s work in Houston has forgotten many of the difficulties in Indiana. He is one of the best coaches in college basketball, and he has the Cougars in the Sweet 16. But they love him in Houston; His family is included in the entire program. It seems like a strange time to move.
Jerome Tang, Bayor associate head coach
Tang has been with Drew at Baylor since the beginning and has been an integral part of Beers’ success. And, frankly, it is amazing that someone so bright, talented, accomplished and attractive is still waiting for his first head coaching job. It may not have been the plan to appoint a head coach for the first time in Texas. But he is one heck of a job.
Grant McCasland, North Texas
Macasland led Mae Green to the Conference USA Tournament title and Purdue’s first round of starts with Western defensive plans slowed Western Kentucky’s Charles Baisie and Boilermakers’ Treviye Williams. He is a former Baylor assistant and spent a year at Arkansas State before taking the UNT job, where his first three teams won 20 games and his fourth, this season, advanced to the NCAA round of 32.
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