Rick Pitino is, under the rules, entitled to hire Shabaka Lands, who is an assistant coach at Marquis Teagues high school (Teague, the younger brother of former Wake star Jeff Teague, is a highly promising young talent). He might have picked a better time to do it, and hiring the guy as a "special assistant to the head coach" hardly speaks to great confidence in his recruiting (you may recall that recently he said that recruiting wasn't really affected by his sex scandal). What it does speak to is knocking down the danger Karen Sypher represents as aggressively as humanly possible.
Since Teague is also a target of Kentucky's, given the enmity between Pitino and Calipari, and Pitino's very real need to assert himself in the face of Calipari's recruiting tsunami, this has the potential to be hugely entertaining. Bonus fun: at Kentucky, Pitino, in a similar move, hired one Simeon Mars as "administrative aide" to accompany Jamaal Magliore down from Toronto, so listening to Kentucky fans explain how the cases are very, very different (read: one's us, of course) may be great fun.
- Rick Pitino's recruiting tactics slightly slimy, very common
- Rick Bozich: Lands' hiring is new package, familiar deal
- Cardinals hire coach of prime prospect
- Pitino hires assistant who coached Teague