Good morning!
I checked with an industry source this morning. The names seemed to be the same: Chris Mack (unemployed), Josh Schertz (Indiana State), Pat Kelsey (Charleston), Nico Medved (Colorado State), Kyle Smith (Washington State) with Mitch Henderson (Princeton), Bob Ritchey (Furman) and Bucky McMillan (Samford) perhaps as possibilities.
Some other notes:
- There is some increasing buzz that the chancellor will play a bigger role in this than thought. There is a lot in the air about faith being lost in how the athletic department has handled its business and some sentiment that maybe some new voices are needed. I have also heard that Renaissance may not play as much of a role now. I cannot warrant this as fact (I guess we'll know more for sure after the fact) but I do think the fact that the candidate pool is what it is suggests there is something to this.
- Timing is important. Vanderbilt is in line with several other schools for a lot of these names; I'm not sure how hot a commodity Chris Mack is or isn't but those other four guys are on a lot of lists, including some that would be better jobs than this one.
- Some background here, none of it ground-breaking if you follow college hoops but still important things to remember. I'll quote nearly verbatim from a source: NIL and the transfer portal have changed how coaches evaluate jobs. It's just too hard to recruit if you have to wait on admission answers and transcript evaluations. There has to be an organized, quantifiable and competitive NIL program in place during recruitment. This is why some schools are declining NIT bids. The portal opens Monday. Schools need to be ready to move quickly. If you are an agent who has a coach with options, you are vetting schools on all this and looking to put your coach in the better situations.
I"ll add more as I get it.
