Perry Fewell became the latest NFL assistant to not want to work for the Bears as he officially became the New York Giants Defensive Coordinator today. Lovie Smith's name has emerged as a possible candidate for the Head Coaching job at the University of Tennessee. Obviously The Beard and others think that would be just fine for all involved.The Bulls had nice victory against the Garnett-less, and Wallace-less Boston Celtics tonight. Gotta start somewhere though on this road trip and an interested Luol Deng, along with great defense and (dare I say it) an emerging Joakim Noah allows for the best chance of success this team has. The Blackhawks managed to calm down any panic from fans who can't handle two losses in a row with a 3-0 shutout of Le Blue Jacket De Columbus tonight as well. All that aside, the focus of this post will be the DePaul Blue Demons struggling basketball program. The Blue Demons lost their 23rd straight Big East game to Providence tonight and lost Mac Koshwal for 2-4 weeks as well. Jerry Wainwright was launched, timely or untimely depending on your outlook, earlier this week and the question is who can DePaul find to take over as Head Coach? Seth Davis of SI.com has a few names here. Digger Phelps apparently wanted the job once upon a time ago. There have also been some other silly names like Robert Montgomery Knight aka The Big Red Sweater, and Isiah Thomas mentioned, but as Dan Bernstein said, John Wayne Gacy was probably the next name after Isiah on that coaching list.
The issue for The Beard really is...haven't we been stuck in the same movie for nearly 15 years now? Wasn't Pat Kennedy supposed to come in from Florida State circa 1997, re-establish the pipeline of recruiting/signing the best Chicago High School basketball players, and resurrect the once storied Blue Demons to perennial Final Four contender? Some of that did actually happen with Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons, and Lance Williams having significant, yet all too brief careers at DPU. DePaul did make the tournament a couple of times, in 2000, and in 2004 under Dave Leitao. Something happened on the way to heaven however, and DePaul never seemed to get the ship turned around, or build on their success, and the wheels of mediocre to BAD seasons kept on spinning.
So once again the Demons find themselves in the same predicament they had when Joey Meyer was launched over a decade ago. Is there a way out of it? In this blog's view, yes there is but the order is a tall one since it would largely depend on financial resources. The current feeling is that DePaul doesn't have the money to go out and hire a "name" coach like Steve Lavin, or Rick Majerus, and that the facilities are in desperate need of a total tear down. This may or may not be true, but one thing that is certain is the best thing DePaul has going for them is their conference. The Big East is a Big Boy conference, and it just might be alluring enough to get a name coach interested. The rub of being in such a conference, is that DePaul can't be afraid to pony up the money it will need to close the deal on hiring a big time coach. Not to mention, the resources it takes to maintain or upgrade their ability to recruit elite players from the city.
Whether or not this will happen is a mystery. The Beard is hopeful that DePaul can turn it around. DePaul is still the only sports team I grew up with that made me cry after a loss (1987 Sweet 16 loss to LSU), and DePaul's Fight Song still takes me back to the time when DePaul was fun to watch, and the possibility of a National Championship was a real one.
No comments:
Post a Comment