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Will there be a national search committee at Princeton?
Or will the A.D., Gary Walters, try to move quickly to annoint one of the obvious candidates: Brown coach Craig Robinson, Northwestern assistant Mitch Henderson, Princeton's top assistant Mike Brennan, Georgetown's top assistant Robert Burke or Richmond head coach Chris Mooney. No doubt, I'm missing others, but these are the first names that come to mind.
Huge decision to make at Princeton, and it's surprising to see Joe Scott leave. He must have had some interesting conversations with Walters during the season and promptly following it.
What this will do for recruiting and to the players in the program remains to be seen.
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3 comments:
One wonders if he jumped or walked the plank--or a bit of both. To succeed Princeton needs to break with its Carril lineage essentialism and create a new tradition.
One option: go for someone from a high major who is familiar with athletes as students first. Tommy Amaker--an intelligent Dukie--comes to mind. He's out of a job, and he coached in NJ at Seton Hall.
Or fight fire with fire, swallow your pride, and raid the Penn house of former coaches, assistants and players (Fran, deep suburban New Jersey has its modest pleasures). Steve Donahue at Cornell comes to mind and, like Penn's hire of Glen Miller, it takes a rising opponent out of the mix for awhile.
Nick in New Orleans
They might want to, but they'll be careful.
The Coach K line, outside Mike Brey, has not been successful (Amaker, Snyder, Henderson). The Penn line is underdeveloped, and Donahue has a good team in Ithaca.
That said, I'd look at Kevin Stallings' assistants at Vanderbilt, where they still value an education, and, also, Roy Williams' assistants at Carolina. There has to be a young visionary out there. Look, Dean Smith got hsi start assisting at Air Force. It's not an exact science, and I, for one, would applaud hiring the best person, period, and not simply the best available person within the Cappon line. It's risky, yes.
Burke and Johnson (see my subsequen post) are different because they're at the high-octane Georgetown program. There, the Princeton system, as it were, has evolved, and, of course, the talent level is (much) different. Still, they've been winners in D.C., and they're both worth a look.
I think Joe both jumped and was pushed, but the one who pushed him was Joe Scott. He realized more than anyone how badly he had screwed up the program and how hard it was going to be to turn things around. He has alienated most of the quality players and the others just aren't that good. Recruiting doesn't seem to be generating much success either. He saw the writing on the wall because he put it there, so when DU threw him a lifeline, he took it.
As for the future, I would welcome a non-Cappon coach, but it will have to be someone who can still coach Princeton-style basketball, since that's who's left on the team.
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