The big ACC news of the day is that Georgia Tech hired Josh Pastner away from Memphis.
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Memphis apparently didn't mind: the university gave Pastner $1.255 million as a contract settlement.
We don't mean to belabor the obvious, but since Pastner took another job, isn't he the guy who broke the contract? So are they just paying him to go away?
Earlier in the day the word was that he'd have to pay $500 K.
Whatever.
The reaction to the hire has been mixed.
While it's safe to say that Mark Bradley isn't our favorite columnist, we still read and respect the Atlanta Journal-Constitution veteran.
He's a bit harsh for our taste at times and pretty negative in general. However, we think he hit the right tone in the column following the Pastner hire. Check it out:
"I’d like to believe him. I’d like to believe he’s the right guy for a program gone wrong. I’d like to believe Bobinski when he insists what happened at Memphis won’t happen here. But what does it say when the fans cheering louder are the ones you’ve leaving?"
After the disappointment at Memphis, is he worth the risk?
Well, maybe.
He is still young and he was a lifer at 20. Lute Olson recruited him not so much as a (recruited) walk-on but as a coach in training.
What we hope is that he hires an experienced assistant, perhaps a former head coach, but at any rate, someone he can lean on. One of the criticisms he encountered at Memphis is that he's not tough enough with his players. A good staff could help with that.
His strong suit is recruiting: he's a tremendous recruiter, and as we said recently, for the right guy, Georgia Tech, sitting in Atlanta, is not a good recruiting base. It's a great recruiting base.
If things work out well, he could throw a blanket over Georgia and control it the way Dean Smith used to control North Carolina or the way Bob Knight controlled Indiana.
Not that we're comparing him to those guys. He has a lot to prove to get to that level.
At this point, he's more likely to be an ACC version of Scott Drew, a guy who gets great talent and does inexplicable things when he does (which is another criticism he heard at Memphis).
Actually, the ACC version of that story is Lefty Driesell: at Maryland, the Lefthander was a sensational recruiter.
Somehow though, his teams almost always came up a bit short and never went that far in the post-season.
At this point, Tech fans might be happy to be at that level. We'll see how this goes.
It's interesting that the ACC has raided the state of Tennessee this spring for two coaches with neither one received very well.
Up at Pitt, former Vandy coach Kevin Stallings has put together his staff.
And in a legacy coaching note, Ryan Odom, son of former Wake coach Dave Odom, is the new head man at UMBC.
Maryland Baltimore-County is best known as a regular punching bag for the Maryland Terrapins. Last year the team finished 7-25. Ryan must be one confident Odom.
Meanwhile, back in the Triangle, despite no discernible demand for his son's talents, Joel Berry's dad says he won't rule out the NBA.
But this site says he's coming back for sure.
By the way, that UNC petition to overturn Villanova's championship? It's closing in on 5,000 soon.