Couldn't resist the headline after Texas Christian hired Jim Christian as their new head coach. Christian led Kent State to the NCAA Tournament this season. Christian was 138-58 at Kent State the past six seasons. The Golden Flashes won at least 20 games each of those seasons, including a 28-7 mark this season. They lost to UNLV in the first round of the tournament this year. It was the fifth time that Christian took Kent State to the postseason in six years (3 NIT, 2 NCAA tournaments). This was the second time this week a mid major coach changed jobs. Matt Brady took over at James Madison after coaching Marist for the past four seasons.
Rumor has it that South Carolina will go after Davidson coach Bob McKillop after the Wildcats' NCAA tournament run has completed. One of the other possible candidates for the South Carolina position, current Oklahoma coach and former VCU head coach Jeff Capel just signed a contract extension with the Sooners, raising his annual salary to over $1 million a year. The contract extension was in part to keep Capel from potentially moving back near his home with the Gamecocks.
It will be interesting to see what offers the 19 year head coach of the Wildcats will get.
I will be at MSG on Tuesday where UMass squares off against Florida and Ohio State will take on Mississippi in the semifinals of the NIT. Tom Kemp in a text message to me this morning correctly pointed out that "Xavier and UMass are making the A10 shine". Xavier obviously has had an excellent run in the NCAA tourney and UMass has been very solid, including their stunning 19 point comeback win over Syracuse. They have made sure that Jim Boeheim will be seeing the Minutemen in his nightmares after UMass beat them twice in the Carrier Dome this season.
You could even say Dayton with Chris Wright also had a good postseason run in the NIT including their second round impressive road win at Illinois State. Those three teams were really the best A10 teams this season. Had Wright not got hurt and UMass had won one game against St Joe's, those two teams most likely would have been in the NCAA tournament instead of the not ready for NCAA prime time Hawks or Temple Owls.
Xavier, who I picked to reach the Elite Eight, has an excellent chance to beat UCLA with their guard play. I think Lavender, CJ Anderson, and B.J Raymond can give Collison, Westbrook and Shipp all they can handle. How Xavier will deal with Kevin Love and the UCLA frontcourt is another matter. Josh Duncan and Derrick Brown must have big games for the Musketeers.
Still at the end of the season, the A10 wasn't quite as strong as people thought they were most of the year. But to have eight teams in the postseason; three NCAA teams and five NIT teams, is a very nice year for the A10. But as I keep telling Tom and all of you, they still aren't a mid major conference. They are at least one level above along with Conference USA and the Mountain West.
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