Amazing day here at HQ…CAA coaches are taking center stage. I keep trying to get to a state of the CAA post, but it’s futile in the flurry of coaching cacophony:
Scroll down for news on Tim Welsh and Hofstra. Commentary coming later, but I should clarify that his contract is in excess of $600K per annum.
Mull gave us Ed Conroy has been offered by UNCW. LOTS of commentary on this. Nobody I’ve spoken with has anything even mediocre to say about Conroy. Dub fans better cross their fingers he accepts.
Never to be outdone, Mason has extended the contract of Jim Larranaga. (Thanks, Patrick.) That’s two extensions in three years, falling one short of Anthony Grant’s CAA record two contract extensions in back-to-back seasons.
The enterprising kids at WRBB are the first (that I’ve seen) to get pEter Roby to admit on the record that he is working on a contract extension for Bill Coen. Amazing what a cross-town job opening can do for a contract negotiation. (Remember, we told Roby in October this should be done.)
Shaka Smart is not talking contract. Rather, he is coaching the VCU Rams in the CBI tonight. VCU holds a 1-0 lead on St. Louis in the best-of-three finals and looks to end it. However a win tonight brings Smart to 27-9 in his first season. With all the money and extensions being thrown around this week, my second phone call is to VCU AD Norwood Teague.
That’s all we’ve got right now, but it’s only 1:00pm.
March 31st, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Honestly, I think NU has more to worry about from Siena than BC when it comes to Coen … from everything I’ve read so far, the BC administration doesn’t seem too interested in plucking fruit off the Skinner coaching tree, even though Coen is widely respected in Chestnut Hill for recruiting and landing all of Skinner’s (Rice, Dudley, Smith, etc.) best players.
Kinda puzzled as to why everyone at the Dub is so excited over a guy whose career record is below .500. While we all understand the challenge of recruiting to a military academy like The Citadel, I can’t help but think a guy with Conroy’s resume wouldn’t be within sniffing distance of this job before the Brownell fiasco led to the utter implosion of the UNCW basketball program. Sad, really
Oh, and there’s a big difference between Grant’s back-to-back extensions and Larranaga’s extensions. Everyone knew Grant’s contract wasn’t worth the paper it was written on; no matter how much VCU tried to sweeten his deal, he was going for the BCS bucks sooner than later.
Well, after he turned down Providence two years ago, Coach L basically got a lifetime deal at Mason — from this point forward, the extensions every couple years are basically a formality and another way to remind recruits that Mason has a luxury only a few top mid-major programs enjoy: a Final Four coach who isn’t interested in chasing a fat BCS paycheck. Coach L will be on the sideline in Fairfax until he decides he doesn’t want to coach any more, and rightfully so.
April 1st, 2010 at 8:48 am
Great points as always on Mason, Jim. Loved the way Litos opened his paragraph on Mason with “Never to be undone”…in true Litos’ fashion.