by Lusuperfan1 » March 4th, 2020, 6:52 pm
I'm not worried about NW at all. I think Collins stays put at least another year. Apparently, a good recruiting class is coming in.
I'm worried maybe 1% about DePaul. Everyone in college basketball knows that as long as JLP is there, that job is a career suicide mission. With her, there's zero chance Porter takes it, even for some outrageous contract worth like $6 million a year. If the St. John's search taught us anything, it's that job security/ability to win is probably the number 1 factor in Porter's next job. SJU took weeks to fire a school legend in Mullin, Porter was option C, and even then, the President and AD were not on the same page about hiring him. DePaul is that dysfunction times ten. Moreover, the Big East is a rebuilding nightmare in general. You have 14 games right off the bat against NCAA tournament teams. You're extremely lucky to go 4-14 in year 1, 2-16 or 1-17 is probably more realistic. It's brutal to build up from there. Couple that with a lack of administrative support, and you're just waiting to be fired.
The rumor around DePaul is that she is retiring and the board will pick the new HC and then hire the AD. There's a very strong chance that they'll hire Watson, our AD, for the same role, but I doubt it gets done in time for Watson to then hire Porter for next season. Plus, I think the fanbase will assume (and probably correctly) that a new AD means that bigger names than Moser could be in play. I wouldn't be surprised to see them make a run at Shaka Smart or fall back to Bryce Drew.
A wildcard school that could scare me is Boston College, although I still think it's unlikely that they and Porter are a match.
As for replacements, I'm not worried. I think this job has always been considered by coaches to have plenty of potential, even before Porter. Now that it's been realized, I don't think we'll lack in suitors. Sure, some of the interested parties will probably turn out to be terrible/disastrous hires (cough*Pitino*cough), and we definitely need to avoid them. But there are plenty of good head coaches who would jump at this opportunity, especially given how loaded the team is next year. I think we can offer $500k a year (less than half of what Porter is currently making), and get a coach most other schools would have to pay close to a million bucks to land. It'll be akin to a star player taking less money just to get a ring.