Capel & Haith Rumors Swirl Around Columbia

NCS Basketball90

We haven’t spent much time talking about the coaching carousel this off-season so we decided to open this entry for our readers to share things that they are seeing and hearing in the marketplace and to link interesting articles, blog posts, and internet ramblings.

Our neighbors to the South – whom we should play every year in basketball as some form of a ‘tradition’ game – seem to be talking most seriously about Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel and Miami’s Frank Haith.

Capel, 33, just completed his second season at Oklahoma after coaching the previous four seasons at Virginia Commonwealth. He emerged a few weeks ago as a candidate at USC, due in part to his ties to the area. Capel grew up in North Carolina, played at Duke and his father is an assistant coach for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats.

You gotta think that Oklahoma is sweating some bullets right now. If for no reason other than perception in the market it can’t be a good sign to lose a coach to the Big Ten and a coach to the bottom of the SEC in a 24 month period.

But, you gotta give programs who know how to proactively manage themselves a lot of credit. OU once challenged Kansas as the gold standard in Big Eight / Big Twelve Basketball. But, Texas refused to sit on the sidelines and went out and hired Rick Barnes to challenge the top of the league.

I remember years ago how a couple of the captains of the HSSS would try to claim Barnes wasn’t a good coach because he couldn’t be OU that often. (Oh, the sadness of the irony). Well…I guess that criticism is gone. OU is now clearly not what they were and their job could turn into a high-risk revolving door and Texas was well positioned to be the benefactor of the turmoil in Norman.

Compare and contrast that with good Ole NC State who watched our rival, UNC-CH, employ FOUR different head basketball coaches in seven years. Talk about an opportunity to catch up!!! Instead, Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department continued to sit on their hands and watch Carolina struggle and then rebound all the while we just continued to run in place.

Coach K can’t be too far from retirement…I can’t wait to see how the Einsteins in West Raleigh are positioned to take advantage of that transition!!

For a little bit of fun related to Frank Haith – you will enjoy this entry from two years ago that discussed how Coach Haith’s interest in the NC State job presented us a ‘floor’ of the ‘worst that we could do’ – which, IMHO, was a fantastic worst case scenario.

You really should read that link; it is quite poignant even two years later and I think that you will enjoy the refresher. Note that the search was about 10 days old at the time and was after Lee Fowler bumbled Rick Barnes and John Calipari’s candidacy. As we highlighted just last week in this home run of an entry, “Coach Fowler” choose to pursue Steve Lavin, John Belein and Lon Kruger during this time frame as opposed to Haith and some of the names that we highlighted in that entry.

At that point, the remaining pool of potential candidates was so negatively tainted that ‘our’ search was screwed and Fowler had nowhere to turn. No coach wanted to be our public ‘6th choice’. I will leave you with a couple of quick highlights from the aforementioned link:

Barring an unknown & unexpected event with some kind of “mystery candidate”, NC State’s coaching search has probably entered a different phase where “Stage B” candidates will need to be properly vetted if they have not already been analyzed by Lee Fowler and team.

Many people have asked, “why aren’t you more devastated by the Rick Barnes & John Calipari situation over the last ten days?” The answer lies in what we think is NC State’s “floor” in this search. In other words, “what is the worst that NC State can do?”.

Barring a God-awful mistake like John Brady (that we honestly do not think that the Wolfpack Club would allow to happen), we think that the “worst” that NC State could do is hire Frank Haith.

Step away from all of your pre-conceived notions for a moment. Think about this and realize that State is in a position that the “WORST” (for lack of a better term”) that we can do in this search is get: a current Atlantic Coast Conference head coach who was the lead assistant in the ACC for successful Wake Forest teams before becoming the lead assistant and top recruiter for Rick Barnes at Texas. By all personal accounts, Haith is an articulate, fiery, tireless worker who has valuable ties in local recruiting networks and is going to be a super coach.

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90 Responses to Capel & Haith Rumors Swirl Around Columbia

  1. Wulfpack 03/26/2008 at 9:09 AM #

    I have heard that Indiana is very interested in Sean Miller.

  2. Noah 03/26/2008 at 9:13 AM #

    They should be. He’s a great coach.

    Lon Kruger, to give some teeny bit of credit to Jed, would have been a good hire. John Brady, no. Beilein? Good coach, but the mess after every State fan’s head exploded would have been terrible. And Lavin? I’m sorry, aren’t we supposed to be hiring a coach?

  3. mwcric 03/26/2008 at 9:25 AM #

    In retrospect, Kruger may not have been a bad hire…

  4. Howler 03/26/2008 at 9:25 AM #

    At the time, I didn’t like the idea of hiring Haith for the NCSU job, but I see now that my “thinking” was based purely on emotion. I perceived Miami as a b-ball program inferior to ours, and I didn’t deem their coach worthy. Interestingly, I was really excited about Lowe’s hire (even though he had just gotten his degree and he had no college coaching experience). This has taught me that emotion should be removed from the decision, and that is why if we don’t have significant improvement next season, the decision to change coaches should be an easy one.

  5. howlie 03/26/2008 at 9:30 AM #

    Like Amato coming here–saying he would only come if he could hire the best assistants–assistant coaches are a key [Amato couldn’t retain his assistants… but I digress].

    It seems that the ‘jump’ Capel has made, and Haith is about to make, is all about what assistants he can hire. IF he/they can lure away top assistants who can RECRUIT top players [& who ALREADY have recruiting contacts with about-to-sign-this-year-players] you have success, and can successfully make the ‘jump’ to the next level before the honeymoon gives out.
    That’s Step 1; and appears to be what Sid did.
    Step 2, apparently, is maintaining team chemistry among the incoming wunderkinds and previous regime’s players.
    Step 3, is finally getting all your own players and maintaining consistency in the program–which is the trickiest of all in this age of 1-&-done.

  6. sautz 03/26/2008 at 9:33 AM #

    I was down on Haith, too, when there was talk of him coming here. However, looking back on it it would have been a good option compared with what we were left with after we were rejected by the bigger names. Miami looked good this year.

  7. 66pack 03/26/2008 at 9:41 AM #

    there was a time in the recent past when bb coaches rarely departed the acc for other conferences.Coaching in the acc was the pinnacle.the acc is now routinly raided by other conf. which indicates a decrease in the acc status.

  8. wufpup76 03/26/2008 at 9:42 AM #

    Should be another interesting off-season of dominos starting w/ the Indiana opening …

    If SC is able to land either Capel or Haith I think that would be a major coup

  9. StateFans 03/26/2008 at 9:45 AM #

    Don’t misinterpret us — we aren’t using hindsight to say that we should have hired Haith. We are simply looking back on the situation since Haith’s name is currently connected to USC (and we expect other future jobs).

    Lee Fowler was dead set against Haith. Wouldn’t give him the time of day. What we said THEN and what we know now just serves as another datapoint of how poorly executed Fowler’s “search” went.

  10. one00_proof 03/26/2008 at 9:50 AM #

    Indiana’s floor/worst-case-scenario seems to be Tony Bennett out of Washington State and Steve Alford out of New Mexico. The leading candidate that Indiana really wants is Bruce Pearl but his “small” brush in tape recording a conversation plus the whole fact he seems to be absolutely in love with Tenn. makes him a long shot.

    Here’s another fun fact, I heard some rumblings that Oliver Prunell was also VERY interested in the NC State vacancy. Just goes to show how Ol Jed continues to f* things up.

    SFN: That is not a rumor. That is true. There are TONS of coaches who sent word of their interest, which includes Tubby Smith and some others.

    All of these names are representative of one crucial thing that we highlighted at the time and continue to highlight to make sure that the historical record is clear — there was a FANTASTIC pool of potential candidates interested and ready to be hired after the miss on Calipari that happened around Day 8-9 of the search. At that point in time Lee Fowler – and Fowler alone – chose to inquire and pursue names Steve Lavin, Lon Kruger and John Belein (who was hired but Fowler changed the terms on him just hours before an announcement) instead of names like Gillispie, Haith, Purnell, Turgeon, Miller, Pelphrey and who knows what others.

  11. primacyone 03/26/2008 at 9:54 AM #

    “Coach K can’t be too far from retirement…I can’t wait to see how the Einsteins in West Raleigh are positioned to take advantage of that transition!!”

    Our Einsteins don’t know of what you speak and honestly could not care less.

    ““Coach Fowler” choose to pursue Steve Lavin, John Belein and Lon Kruger during this time frame as opposed to Haith and some of the names that we highlighted in that entry.”

    How this did not proove his idiotcy, I don’t know. This is Tobacco Road for goodness sake. How he was not fired on the spot for even the idea of these guys is beyond be. He thought these guys were a better choice for us than Frank Haith and Sean Miller. IDIOT. IDOIT. IDIOT. A CARE LESS IDIOT.

    If all of us get this, how does the know one in power not get it?

  12. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 03/26/2008 at 9:56 AM #

    I’ve heard that NC State may be looking to Arizona State if Lee thinks he needs to make a coaching change. Fowler doesn’t plan to make that decision until sometime in the mid-summer after a 3 month scuba vacation to the Cayman Islands.

  13. Trout 03/26/2008 at 10:08 AM #

    “there was a time in the recent past when bb coaches rarely departed the acc for other conferences.Coaching in the acc was the pinnacle.the acc is now routinly raided by other conf. which indicates a decrease in the acc status.”

    Part of it is the nature of coaching. Unless a coach has built the very pinnacle of a program (K, Roy), then switching jobs every 5-8 years isnt a bad strategy, as it usually involves more money and resets your “achievement” clock. Dave Odom and Herb Sendek are recent examples of this.

    Barnes leaving Clemson for Texas and Haith leaving Miami for SC (if it happens), I dont think qualify as making the ACC less desirable. Both of those would be leaving for much better opportunities.

    The ACC has had very surprising defections though. Norm Sloan leaving NC State and Bill Foster leaving Duke back in the early 80s were considered shocking.

    Roy left one of the top 5-6 programs of all time (Kansas) for UNC. V was going to leave NC State for UCLA.

  14. packpower 03/26/2008 at 10:13 AM #

    Purnell had been a Clemson two years when Sendek resigned so I doubt he was interested. Plus, before Tom O’Brien was hired, there was that “unwritten rule” that an ACC coach couldn’t jump schools.

    SFN: Purnell was most definitely interested in our job at the time. No big deal. But, the record needs to be clear and not muddied with people’s personal presumptions.

    The initials of a name that I thought should have received an interview were OS, a national championship coach, who now resides in Minnesota. OS had some very strong ties to North Carolina.

    SFN: Help us out, here.

  15. PAPacker 03/26/2008 at 10:22 AM #

    how about just giving us the name packpower?

  16. packpower 03/26/2008 at 10:25 AM #

    Trout – Good point on Valvano wanting to leave for UCLA. Although one can’t change the past, I’ve always wondered what would have happened if Poulton had released Valvano from the contract (would the impact of personal fouls have been as severe?)

    Foster leaving wasn’t shocking to Duke insiders and is chronicled in Feinstein’s “Forever’s Team”. If memory is correct, Duke’s administration wouldn’t even repair a muddy parking lot.

    I think Sloan left for more $ at Florida. Florida was the first school to invest serious $ in coaches as Charley Pell had left Clemson for Florida a year earlier.

  17. packbackr04 03/26/2008 at 10:25 AM #

    is it tubby smith? whats tubby 1st name?

  18. packpower 03/26/2008 at 10:26 AM #

    OS is Orlando “Tubby” Smith. There was speculation he was interested.

  19. StateofthePack 03/26/2008 at 10:26 AM #

    Orlando

  20. wufpup76 03/26/2008 at 10:27 AM #

    OS = Orlando “Tubby” Smith

  21. Wulfpack 03/26/2008 at 10:27 AM #

    Orlando “Tubby” Smith.

  22. StateofthePack 03/26/2008 at 10:28 AM #

    Minnesota definitely came out of that coaching change a winner.

  23. MattN 03/26/2008 at 10:29 AM #

    “which includes Tubby Smith ”

    Please tell me you’re kidding. Please. I won’t sleep well knowing that a national championship winning, *possibly* 1st ballot hall of fame coach wanted to come here and we didn’t even speak to him.

    Please, please tell me you were just kidding with that…

  24. wufpup76 03/26/2008 at 10:29 AM #

    This is the Department of Redundancy Department. This message comes from the Department of Redundancy Department.

    Thank you.
    Thank you.

  25. packpower 03/26/2008 at 10:30 AM #

    SFN – Not doubting you but I’ve never heard Purnell was interested. Prior to O’Brien’s hiring, I always heard that the ACC would frown on an interleague transfer of coaches. Of course that myth was ended when O’Brien moved from BC to NC State.

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