Coaching Candidates

[parkerj]

Billeter, if he wants to move on, likely will have his pick of many offers, some from programs that are in a better position for him to be successful in immediately. There are many openings right now, and sadly, we aren't exactly at the top of that list of opportunities. I would love it if this were not true, but it is, and I really don't think there is much debate on that.

I don't think we'd be as far down as you believe (if we're even looking at him)...A guy with a track record of recruiting in Minnesota and Iowa is appealing to us. It's probably not as appealing to James Madison University in Virginia.

This may change as hires are made (particularly if my guy Nagy leaves SDSU), but right now I see at most 8 openings that you could argue are better than ours and I'm not sure Billeter makes sense at any of them except SF Austin (where an internal hire is pretty likely...not to mention they've got their own uncertainty issues to deal with)

[TheDarkHawkReturns]

Here is the list per ESPN. Travis Ford has been reportedly hired at Saint Louis, but that is not reflected on the table on ESPN.com so I added it.

School	Out	In
Arkansas State	John Brady	Grant McCasland
Central Connecticut	Howie Dickenman
Drexel	Bruiser Flint
North Carolina A&T	Cy Alexander	Jay Joyner
Pacific	Ron Verlin	Damon Stoudamire
Prairie View A&M	Byron Rimm	Byron Smith
Santa Clara	Kerry Keating
UMBC	Aki Thomas
Wisconsin	Bo Ryan	Greg Gard
San Francisco	Rex Walters
Southern Utah	Nick Robinson	Todd Simon
UNLV	Dave Rice
Rutgers	Eddie Jordan	Steve Pikiell
Saint Louis	Jim Crews	Travis Ford*
Texas San Antonio	Brooks Thompson
Denver	Joe Scott	Rodney Billups
UCF	Donnie Jones
Cornell	Bill Courtney
James Madison	Matt Brady
Stanford	Johnny Dawkins
TCU	Trent Johnson	Jamie Dixon
Tulane	Ed Conroy
Portland	Eric Reveno
UT Rio Grande Valley	Dan Hipsher
Delaware	Monte Ross
Wright State	Billy Donlon
UW-Milwaukee	Rob Jeter
Pittsburgh	Jamie Dixon
Jacksonville State	James Green
Western Kentucky	Ray Harper
Oklahoma State	Travis Ford	Brad Underwood
Wyoming	Larry Shyatt	Allen Edwards
Dartmouth	Paul Cormier
Stony Brook	Steve Pikiell
Stephen F. Austin	Brad Underwood

Which 8 are we ahead of and which are we better than?

[parkerj]

That list needs lots of updating. The 8 current openings you could make an argument for are:

Vandy
Georgia Tech
UAB
Little Rock
SF Austin
James Madison
Wright State
Portland

I wouldn't necessarily make some of those arguments.

[TheDarkHawkReturns]

There are some pretty nice destinations in that list of 8. And 8 is a lot of programs ahead of you in the pecking order.

Wright State is probably marginally better than Milwaukee right now, and being in the same region and conference makes that marginal difference more impactful to us, IMO.

My point is that we are not right now a "choice" destination, at least I don't see how we could be. And do not take this to mean I LIKE that reality, but it is the reality.

What really makes me mad is that reality is almost entirely self-inflicted.

[parkerj]

But specifically regarding Billeter, none of those jobs makes more sense.

Cross Vandy & GT off immediately. Their hire may open a job that winds up ahead of us on the list, but they're not hiring a D-II coach from South Dakota (and both are currently being linked to Duke assistant Jeff Capel)

UAB is likely to make an internal hire

Little Rock will have a lot of veteran talent returning from this year's team, but as a program this year was lightning in a bottle. They hadn't won more than 23 games since the 80s

SFA has been great lately and Billeter was an assistant at A&M, but their star is leaving and they're in the Southland. Slip up even a little and you're screwed.

JMU is a geographically poor fit for Billeter.

Portland is only on this list because they're looking to make a "splash" hire after Mark Few called out the entire conference. Terry Porter is the name that's popped up. Not likely to go for a D-II coach.

Wright State has been linked to a number of low-major D-I HCs despite having its own dysfunction. I'm jealous. They could possibly be the team to open the SDSU job, but aside from that I don't see them opening a job for anybody who would be a better fit for Billeter.

[TheDarkHawkReturns]

Unless he is waiting to see if SDSU opens up, that is, in which case we have literally no chance to land him.

[parkerj]

Maybe. There are obvious advantages for him at SDSU, but the job would have to open (Nagy's been HC there since he was 29...might be a lifer at this point) and I think we can offer more money.

Though this could all be moot, as we don't even know if Billeter is actually a candidate.

[JGPanthers]

Unless he is waiting to see if SDSU opens up, that is, in which case we have literally no chance to land him.

Pure conjecture. Not sure why this is an argument, but there is nothing to base this opinion off of besides the location of SDSU.

[TheDarkHawkReturns]

At this point, SDSU could be considered an potential elite mid major, having been to the dance 3 of the last 5 seasons, and twice winning their opening round game. As D1 programs go, this is not a bad one to be a part of presently, especially for a guy who can recruit to South Dakota. He would take the helm of a solid program in a familiar area that would make great use of his recruiting networks as well as his personality.

That said, as others have mentioned, there is nothing to indicate that he is even a candidate for Milwaukee, so this is an just entertaining discussion in theory right now.

[parkerj]

At this point, SDSU could be considered an potential elite mid major, having been to the dance 3 of the last 5 seasons, and twice winning their opening round game.

Ehh? NDSU won one game in the tournament, but SDSU hasn't yet.

Wouldn't call them elite, either. Under normal circumstances, I think we could take their coach.