TUESDAY, 8:34 a.m.:
... The feeling in coaching and agent circles is that Texas Tech's search could take some time. There's not an obvious, no-brainer option (e.g. Chris Beard when Tubby Smith left) and the sense is that the committee is aiming pretty high here in the early stages of the process.
... Let's briefly explore the idea of 'aiming high' because I can see that phrase being tossed back around if Texas Tech ends up hiring a mid-major head coach or Power Five assistant. 'Aiming high' is kind of a coaching search cliche, right? You could copy and paste that part of the above blurb into early coverage of any program's search and probably get away with it because 'aiming high' is pretty nebulous. Do I know for a fact that Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino and Coach K have been contacted about this job? No. Do I think reports from credible or semi-credible outlets about those coaches being contacted is indicative of how the committee/search firm defines 'aiming high' in this search process? Yes.
... Repeat after me: There is no list of finalists. There is no front-runner. There almost certainly have not been any formal interviews at this point.
... If aiming high results in missing high, it wouldn't surprise us if Mississippi State basketball coach Chris Jans was someone that the search firm brings forward as someone worth considering along with some of the candidates that we mentioned Friday. Jans is broadly familiar with the region after successful head coaching stints at Howard JC - coincidentally Jans was Mark Adams' predecessor there - and New Mexico State, and has taken the Bulldogs back to the NCAA tournament in his first season in Starkville. (Keep in mind, Mississippi State had been to the NCAA tournament just 11 times in its history.) We don't think this would prevent him from being considered, because he has been pretty forthright about owning his mistakes, but Jans was fired from Bowling Green in 2015 after he made inappropriate advances toward multiple women while intoxicated at a bar.
... Al Pinkins, who returned to Lubbock less than a year ago to join Adams' staff, has an offer from Beard to join the staff at Ole Miss. This is going to shock all of you, I'm sure, but Beard is in a hurry to get an answer from Pinkins. We don't think Pinkins had a super fun time working under Beard previously, but coaches generally don't like being unemployed - except, perhaps, coaches who get paid millions of dollars to go away - so the security of a solid job offer may be hard to turn down.
FRIDAY, 7:49 p.m.:
... Texas Tech is less than 48 hours removed from announcing Mark Adams' departure as the university's head men's basketball coach. Selection Sunday is this weekend. The spring transfer window doesn't even open until Monday. The Sweet 16 is two weeks away. Unlike in 2021, where Chris Beard resigned on April 1 and Mark Adams was hired on April 5, Texas Tech has plenty of time to engage in a healthy, thorough search process for its next basketball coach.
... Jon Rothstein and other East Coast media linked Rick Pitino to the Texas Tech job this afternoon -- a story almost certainly not sourced from West Texas. Level has already expressed a healthy dose of skepticism about Pitino as a candidate. It seems like an odd fit for a number of reasons. It's probably safe to move on from that report.
... It's fair to wonder how Adams' $3.9 million buyout being owed in 30 days - instead of paid out over a period of months or years - will impact this search. That's a not insignificant chunk of change.
... It is also probably safe to view North Texas head coach Grant McCasland, Oral Roberts head coach Paul Mills, UAB head coach Andy Kennedy and UNLV assistant coach Barret Peery as candidates. To be clear: This isn't "the list." It is too early in this process for there to be a definitive list. But we feel strongly that at least those four will be vetted and contacted - either directly or indirectly.
... Kennedy stands out from that group as, unlike McCasland, Mills and even Peery, he hasn't been mentioned much on RRS over the last few days. For those that haven't read up on Kennedy, he has the Blazers at 25-8 this season, No. 54 in KenPom and No. 57 in the NET rankings. They just beat McCasland's North Texas team this afternoon in the C-USA tournament and will play for that league's automatic NCAA bid tomorrow evening. In three years in Birmingham, Kennedy is 74-23 overall and 40-15 in C-USA. Prior to UAB, Kennedy spent 12 seasons at the helm of the Ole Miss basketball program where he went 245-156 overall and 102-98 in the SEC with trips to the NCAA tournament in 2013 and 2015.
... I have spoken with a media contact in Oxford who covered Kennedy's tenure at Ole Miss who thinks Kennedy would be very successful if he returned to the high-major level because of how well he has leveraged the transfer portal at UAB -- something that didn't exist when Kennedy was coaching the Rebels. UAB guard Jordan Walker, who transferred into the program from Tulane in 2021, is the third-leading scorer in the country and was the Conference USA Player of the Year in 2022. The Blazers' top seven scorers all joined the program through the transfer portal. My contact: "He would have won bigger at Ole Miss in this [transfer portal and NIL] era."
... The feeling in coaching and agent circles is that Texas Tech's search could take some time. There's not an obvious, no-brainer option (e.g. Chris Beard when Tubby Smith left) and the sense is that the committee is aiming pretty high here in the early stages of the process.
... Let's briefly explore the idea of 'aiming high' because I can see that phrase being tossed back around if Texas Tech ends up hiring a mid-major head coach or Power Five assistant. 'Aiming high' is kind of a coaching search cliche, right? You could copy and paste that part of the above blurb into early coverage of any program's search and probably get away with it because 'aiming high' is pretty nebulous. Do I know for a fact that Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino and Coach K have been contacted about this job? No. Do I think reports from credible or semi-credible outlets about those coaches being contacted is indicative of how the committee/search firm defines 'aiming high' in this search process? Yes.
... Repeat after me: There is no list of finalists. There is no front-runner. There almost certainly have not been any formal interviews at this point.
... If aiming high results in missing high, it wouldn't surprise us if Mississippi State basketball coach Chris Jans was someone that the search firm brings forward as someone worth considering along with some of the candidates that we mentioned Friday. Jans is broadly familiar with the region after successful head coaching stints at Howard JC - coincidentally Jans was Mark Adams' predecessor there - and New Mexico State, and has taken the Bulldogs back to the NCAA tournament in his first season in Starkville. (Keep in mind, Mississippi State had been to the NCAA tournament just 11 times in its history.) We don't think this would prevent him from being considered, because he has been pretty forthright about owning his mistakes, but Jans was fired from Bowling Green in 2015 after he made inappropriate advances toward multiple women while intoxicated at a bar.
... Al Pinkins, who returned to Lubbock less than a year ago to join Adams' staff, has an offer from Beard to join the staff at Ole Miss. This is going to shock all of you, I'm sure, but Beard is in a hurry to get an answer from Pinkins. We don't think Pinkins had a super fun time working under Beard previously, but coaches generally don't like being unemployed - except, perhaps, coaches who get paid millions of dollars to go away - so the security of a solid job offer may be hard to turn down.
FRIDAY, 7:49 p.m.:
... Texas Tech is less than 48 hours removed from announcing Mark Adams' departure as the university's head men's basketball coach. Selection Sunday is this weekend. The spring transfer window doesn't even open until Monday. The Sweet 16 is two weeks away. Unlike in 2021, where Chris Beard resigned on April 1 and Mark Adams was hired on April 5, Texas Tech has plenty of time to engage in a healthy, thorough search process for its next basketball coach.
... Jon Rothstein and other East Coast media linked Rick Pitino to the Texas Tech job this afternoon -- a story almost certainly not sourced from West Texas. Level has already expressed a healthy dose of skepticism about Pitino as a candidate. It seems like an odd fit for a number of reasons. It's probably safe to move on from that report.
... It's fair to wonder how Adams' $3.9 million buyout being owed in 30 days - instead of paid out over a period of months or years - will impact this search. That's a not insignificant chunk of change.
... It is also probably safe to view North Texas head coach Grant McCasland, Oral Roberts head coach Paul Mills, UAB head coach Andy Kennedy and UNLV assistant coach Barret Peery as candidates. To be clear: This isn't "the list." It is too early in this process for there to be a definitive list. But we feel strongly that at least those four will be vetted and contacted - either directly or indirectly.
... Kennedy stands out from that group as, unlike McCasland, Mills and even Peery, he hasn't been mentioned much on RRS over the last few days. For those that haven't read up on Kennedy, he has the Blazers at 25-8 this season, No. 54 in KenPom and No. 57 in the NET rankings. They just beat McCasland's North Texas team this afternoon in the C-USA tournament and will play for that league's automatic NCAA bid tomorrow evening. In three years in Birmingham, Kennedy is 74-23 overall and 40-15 in C-USA. Prior to UAB, Kennedy spent 12 seasons at the helm of the Ole Miss basketball program where he went 245-156 overall and 102-98 in the SEC with trips to the NCAA tournament in 2013 and 2015.
... I have spoken with a media contact in Oxford who covered Kennedy's tenure at Ole Miss who thinks Kennedy would be very successful if he returned to the high-major level because of how well he has leveraged the transfer portal at UAB -- something that didn't exist when Kennedy was coaching the Rebels. UAB guard Jordan Walker, who transferred into the program from Tulane in 2021, is the third-leading scorer in the country and was the Conference USA Player of the Year in 2022. The Blazers' top seven scorers all joined the program through the transfer portal. My contact: "He would have won bigger at Ole Miss in this [transfer portal and NIL] era."
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