It's Actually Shocking Wake Forest Hoops Didn't Screw Up Their Coaching Search And Is About To Hire The Right Guy
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There's only been one major coaching change in college hoops this year. A large part of that is because of coronavirus and shutting down the tournament, etc and limiting the budget athletic departments have to work with. A majority of them didn't want to pay a buyout for the current guy, a buyout for the new guy plus a salary, etc. That said, Wake decided to go ahead and fire Danny Manning this past Saturday.
They had to. Thanks to Jeff Bzdelik and now Danny Manning, Wake has become the worst program in the ACC. Wake was never the worst program in the ACC. They were rolling under Skip Prosser. Shit, even with Dino Gaudio they were the No. 1 team in the country at one point. Danny Manning made the NCAA Tournament just once - and they lost the play-in game. They had to get rid of him, even if it cost $15 million.
That in mind they had to make the right hire. Wake is the only major program looking for a new coach. They couldn't miss and there was a legit fear they would. Why? John Currie is the AD. Currie is the same former Tennessee AD who fucked up the Greg Schiano/Jeremy Pruitt coaching search. There were rumors a couple days ago that they had Chris Collins as a lead candidate. Chris Collins! The dude fucking stinks at Northwestern. That would be a terrible hire.
Luckily it sounds like Wake is going in the right direction. There were only really 3, maybe 4 guys that they could hire that made sense. Randolph Childress, the legend and current assistant coach, to keep the internal fans happy. Wes Miller, the young guy at UNC-Greensboro who is the hottest name on the mid-major coaching list and his dad is a trustee. That one made a ton of sense, but the fear is you're essentially prepping him to take over UNC whenever Roy leaves since Miller played there.
Finally it was Steve Forbes. I can't believe Forbes is only 55, but he's still young enough to coach there for a decade + assuming he's successful. Currie knows him from Tennessee, when he was an assistant for Pearl. He's also been wildly successful at ETSU. He was there for 5 years, made the Tournament in 2016-17 and was going to make it again this year. He never finished worse than 3rd in the SoCon, which is a competitive ass league. He won at least 24 games every year. They were a top-100 team on KenPom all but one year. He likes to play fast, loves to force turnovers but more importantly he's great at adjusting to his roster.
I guess there still is a way for Currie to fuck this up - simply by not doing the paperwork correctly or anything. But for the time being, the one lone coaching search we had, Wake somehow did it correctly. Wake deserves to be good at basketball again. Sure, I may have a soft spot for Wake since my pops went there and I wore 22 my entire life because Randolph Childress is my favorite athlete of all time. But they have the history with guys like Duncan, Childress, Rodgers, Howard, Paul, etc.
PS: It feels good to actually talk about sports. Let's do that again soon.