Brownell is one that I’d thought would be a good fit at NC State. When Clemson hired him, I thought it was a good move. He’s not tearing it up at Clemson and I think some combination of him and the institutional disadvantages of Clemson are holding him back a bit in recruiting. I think he’d have done better at NC State because his biggest weakness (recruiting) is something that every coach in my lifetime at NC State other than Les has done fairly easily.
As for the contract extension, maybe they locked him up for 6 years on the cheap? If so, it might not be a bad move. I don’t think the fans are going to want to push him out because the expectations there are different.
As for GT, Gregory has to be on borrowed time. He was a bad hire initially and GT is seemingly dead in the water. I understand that no “good” coach wanted that job given what was happening with the stadium renovations. Evidently Gregory came on the cheap and gave them an opportunity to get out of the financial mess that was Hewitt’s buy out.
I actually think GT is a good job. Yes it is a football state with very few places to hide players class and major wise, but you don’t need as many players in basketball. Also, the Atlanta metro has some talent (which we’ve mined fairly well recently). GT just needs to keep those kids at home.
As for the rest of the league, I think Miami is a great job. It has to be a piece of cake to recruit there. From a competitive situation, I’m thankful that Larranaga (who I think is a great coach) is going to eventually age out of that job.
That will also be the case with UNC, Duke, Syracuse and Louisville in the not so distant future. UNC and Duke seem to be machines that will roll on (though I suspect Duke may struggle with a successor if Collins doesn’t work out at NW and UNC may have problems if the playing field gets evened some), and Louisville has been up and down based on coach. Syracuse is the unknown to me. They didn’t have much before Jim B., and outside of the Carrier Dome, they don’t seem to have much going for them. They’re not really NYC’s team.
Of course, I thought the same about UConn and they won a title this year. I suspect given the way the deck is stacked, that these four will roll on.
