In the only ACC game Thursday night, FSU took a laugher from Georgia State,
87-55. There are no Friday games.
In a bit of football news,
Miami has decided to hire from within and has promoted assistant Randy Shannon, who
has been the defensive coordinator. He'll be the only African-American
coach in the ACC, and one of only six nationally, a disgracefully low figure.
Miami has had some real money issues. They had to pay a big chunk to
the Big East, then there was the Perry Clarke buyout, and now the Larry Coker
contract. So it's not like they can go out and just pay millions (more)
for a football coach.
But as they did when they hired Frank Haith, they've made a potentially smart
move.
Shannon is highly regarded as an assistant; the questions about his ability
to be a head coach will only center around administrative talents, the ability
to hire assistants who are as good as he is, recruiting, and keeping the program
on the straight and mostly narrow.
Although cash inhibits Miami's ability to compete for the very best coaches,
and there are other problems, like facilities, luke-warm support and so
on. So A.D. Paul Dee, unable to lure a Rick Pitino or Steve Spurrier, has
picked a guy as basketball coach who was considered the best assistant in the
country and a guy as football coach who was also considered the best assistant
in the country in his game.
He's also tapped into something we've thought of for a while: whenever
Duke looks for a new coach, which we hope is a long ways away, they should look
carefully at African-American assistant coaches. Duke has trouble finding
quality guys who will take the job; black assistant coaches have trouble finding
someone to have faith in them.
Somewhere out there, a great young coach is waiting for a chance. Duke
could do a lot of things right by identifying him and hiring him when the time
comes.
In other Miami news, hoop-oriented, center Anthony
King has a sprained ligament in his wrist which will keep him out for a
month, possibly more.
One more football note: turns out Tom
O' Brien contacted State about "getting out" of Boston. The
ACC has an old agreement not to poach coaches from fellow conference
members. State has no regard for this. You may remember Frank
Haith's name was seriously considered for the basketball opening as well.
State will get an excellent coach, but not a guy who is particularly
entertaining or glib. These are qualities State fans tend to like, as
demonstrated by Chuck Amato's sense of fashion, and Norm Sloan's before him, for
that matter. But winning might help them overlook this character flaw.