NC State has been Beamerized.
WRAL-TV is reporting that Rick Barnes has spurned NC State’s offers and will remain the head basketball coach at the University of Texas.
Dave Glenn’s Blog has an update on Thursday with quotes in it.
“We’re working very hard, and we want to do it as quick as possible,” said Herman Rooker, a Raleigh resident who served on the Wolfpack Club board for eight years. “I think this process will tell us a lot about Lee Fowler.”
Little Ricky from Hickory will now ride off into the sunset as a Big 12 retiree. With the ride will come some increased expectations from Texas fans that will come with his increased pay check that should be announced soon.
True to form, nobody at Texas really seems to care very much. The news is all over the NC State internet community, but hasn’t even made the front page of InsideTexas.com as of yet. The only threads on the Texas message boards regarding the news were orginated by NC State fans.
SFN’s Take:
We tried hard. We missed. It’s time to move on. It shouldn’t be that big of a deal. NC State put its best foot forward with a hard sell on a candidate that fit the job perfectly. We should be very proud of the effort expended; we won’t know how proud we should be of the execution of the process/search until this is all completed. Lee Fowler still has to make a believer out of us.
In the end, State waited a few years too late to make the move on Barnes, just as they have missed opportunities for names like Bruce Pearl, Bill Self, John Calipari, and Thad Matta in recent years. Had NC State been more proactive in the management of its basketball program some five years ago when Herb Sendek should have been fired, we wouldn’t be in this situation now.
As we shared with you earlier today, John Calipari’s representatives have not been provided the human courtesy of a returned phone call from Lee Fowler despite multiple attempts at reaching out to the NC State search process.
If NC State has spoken to as many as ten potential candidates as reported earlier today, then how the hell is John Calipari NOT one of them?
If the next logical step is not John Calipari…and Jay Wright is not interested in leaving Villanova as reported…then where does Lee Fowler go next?
That question means that Fowler’s NC State coaching search moves from the “obvious stage” to the “thinking stage.” That is what scares the hell out of the majority of NC State fans. God help us.
