Lot of activity in the coaching carousel:
— Utah State’s Danny Sprinkle bolts from Utah State to Washington; Aggies were 28-7 this season, in Sprinkle’s first year in Logan. He had to rebuild the entire roster; when he took the job, he didn’t have any players who scored a point for Utah State the previous year.
Sprinkle is 80-25 as a coach the last three years; 52-18 at Montana State, 28-7 at Utah State.
— Toledo’s Tod Kowalczyk jumps from the Rockets to Utah State; he went 104-37 the last four years at Toledo, but never made the NCAA’s. Rockets haven’t made the tournament since 1980.
— Utah State will have its 4th coach in five years next year, its 6th coach in 11 years, and they had only one losing season during all that time.
— James Madison coach Mark Byington is now the coach at Vanderbilt; he went 82-36 in four years with the Dukes, after coaching Georgia Southern for seven years.
— Washington State is moving to the WCC next year because the Pac-12 doesn’t exist anymore; their coach Kyle Smith bolted to Stanford Monday. Smith went 94-71 in five years coaching the Coogs, after coaching San Francisco for three years, Columbia for six years.
Stanford is moving to the ACC next year (why!?!??), so Smith will get a lot of frequent flyer miles in his new job.
— Missouri State brought an old friend back, hiring Cuonzo Martin as its new coach;; Martin was 61-41 coaching the Bears from 2008-11, then moved on to Tennessee, Cal and Missouri.
Missouri State was 74-49 the last four years under Dana Ford, 45-31 in MVC games, but they haven’t made the NCAA’s since 1999, when Steve Alford was their coach. The rich people who control the purse strings in college sports aren’t very patient these days.
— William & Mary hired Cornell coach Brian Earl; Big Red went 22-8 this year, winning the Ivy League regular season with a 13-3 mark.
— Some coaching jobs that are still open:
Louisville, Oklahoma State, Cornell, Drake, Duquesne, FAU, Fresno State, James Madison, Long Beach State, Pepperdine, Saint Louis, Siena, Washington State
Famous birthdays for March 26:
Diana Ross, 80
Marcus Allen, 64
John Stockton, 62
Keira Knightley, 39
Von Miller, 35
Cristian Javier, 27
Word of the Day:
Enthusiastic – having or showing intense and eager enjoyment.
— UNLV is in the NIT, where the schedule has been odd:
Wednesday, Rebels won 84-77 at Princeton, in New Jersey. Long trip.
Sunday, Rebels beat Boston College 79-70 at home. Long trip for BC.
This Wednesday, Rebels play at Seton Hall, again in New Jersey.
Final Four for the NIT this year is in Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where they filmed the last few game scenes in Hoosiers.
— Lon Kruger, father of UNLV coach Kevin Kruger, led five different schools to the NCAA Tournament:
Kansas State, 1987-90
Florida, 1994-95
Illinois, 1997-98, 2000
UNLV, 2007-08, 2010-11
Oklahoma, 2013-16, 2018-21
Kruger also coached the Atlanta Hawks for three years (2000-03)
— Houston’s 100-95 overtime win over Texas A&M Sunday night was unusual:
4 Houston players fouled out; last time a team won an NCAA Tourney game when four of their players fouled out was 1987.
A&M lost by 5 points; they missed 16 foul shots (29-45)
Aggies’ best player, Wade Taylor, shot 5-26 from the floor.
A&M had 26 offensive rebounds; Houston had 24 defensive rebounds.
Houston led by 13 with 3:49 left, won in overtime. Very unusual.
— Deion Sanders is babbling again, saying how he is going to pull strings to make sure his son plays for a certain NFL team(s). Colorado went 4-8 last year with Sanders coaching and his son playing QB (1-8 in Pac-12). The kid has never played for a coach other than his father.
If you ran an NFL franchise, and your 7-figure salary depended on winning, would you draft the Sanders kid? Seems like too much of a soap opera for me.
— UFL starts this week; the 8-team football league, combining teams from the USFL/XFL, will play a 10-game schedule, with the top two teams in each division making the playoffs. It looks like FOX, ESPN and ABC will be showing the games.
— Since 2000, four baseball players have been hit by a pitch twice in the same inning:
2008- Mike Hessman, Det
2010- Jose Guillen, SF
2012- David DeJesus, Cubs
2014- Brandon Moss, A’s
