The search for N.C. State’s 19th head basketball coach has been laced in irony since day one.
After spending nearly a week and a half staring down a short list of high-profile candidates, many members of Wolfpack Nation are convinced that the road leading back to national prominence should only be paved in “It’s Miller Time” T-shirts and a 2-3 million dollar salary, which would be the highest paying gig in the ACC.
And what’s even more unfamiliar than State possibly being the highest paying job in the triangle? The opinion that Arizona head coach Sean Miller is not what State needs regardless of whether he wants to come to Raleigh.
While it would be difficult to pass over a young, proven coach with a great deal of upside, it seems as though interest among fans in taking the same approach as the Wildcats did in 2009 when they hired Miller, is very minimal.
The reason State is interested in Miller in the first place is that he successfully transitioned from a school in a mid-major conference to big-time basketball program. In fact, he’s not the only name on the media-manufactured short list that did exactly the same thing. While Miller came over from Xavier, Mike Brey came from Delaware, Mark Turgeon came from Wichita State, and Mark Fox came from Nevada.
If these are some of the best names that are potentially available to Athletics Director Debbie Yow in the coming weeks, it should be duly noted that each of these coaches didn’t just swap ladders to get to their respective positions—they climbed it.
As March Madness continues, it’s also important to note that currently successful programs didn’t pry away their coach from another “BCS Conference” school.
Out of the teams that made it to the sweet sixteen in this year’s NCAA Tournament, nine coaches were hired from mid-major programs and two coaches got their jobs because they were previously assistants at their respective schools. Among the universities not in this category are UNC and Kansas.
N.C. State is not UNC or Kansas.
While luring Brad Stevens away from Butler will be difficult considering he’s under contract for another decade, he’s not the only mid-major candidate available. VCU’s Shaka Smart, Belmont’s Rick Byrd, Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall, and Xavier’s Chris Mack have all established themselves as viable candidates.
That being said, there are certainly no candidates taylor-made for the State job. A large reason why is that it’s difficult to compare the situation at N.C. State with any other institution.
One comparison can be made to Cincinnati when they went looking for a coach in 2006. Like State, Cincy headed into the search with tradition (two national titles), relatively new facilities (state-of-the-art athletic complex built in February of 2006), the lure of playing in a major basketball conference (the Big East), and the ever present issue of being overshadowed by more successful programs nearby (Ohio State and Xavier).
The Bearcats eventually decided on Mick Cronin from Murray State. Cronin recently led Cincinnati to its first NCAA Tournament appearance as a member of the Big East.
After all is said and not very much is done, the bottom line is this: If the sources at Arizona are correct and Miller has no interest in taking the job, it may inadvertently end up being a better situation for a mid-major candidate to step in.
Not only would they be cheaper, but the expectation level would not be in the stratosphere like it could be if Miller ended up being Raleigh-bound.
However, no matter who ends up patrolling the sidelines in November, one thing is a lock—State students can definitely come up with something more original than, “It’s Miller Time”.
