Some of the names mentioned would just be awful hires. Thoughts on some, in no particular order.
Andy Kennedy - 12 years at Ole Miss and 2 NCAAT appearances and a handful of NIT. Done pretty well at UAB. Wouldn't have me excited but it wouldn't be horrible.
Ben McCollum - Most interesting suggestion so far. Very proven winner, but no experience at the D1 level, and not a SE guy at all. Not really sure why he'd come here as I imagine he's been reached out to by similar level programs in a region closer to where he is familiar. Anyways, good out of the box kind of suggestion.
Pitino - no. Great coach. **** person. Just no.
Marshall - Like above. Great coach. **** person. Just no.
Beard - Good coach, but IMO bit overrated. Had a great year at TT leading them to the championship game but has been kind of Hewitt -esque since then going 9-9, 9-8, 10-8 in conference since. Also by most accounts seems to be a grade A ***. Wouldn't be a bad get if it turns out the issues with his fiance aren't as big as they initially seemed.
Anthony Grant - This would be a good hire imo and would make a lot of sense. Not sure if we'd be able to do it though.
Chris Mack - He was one that I wanted when we got Pastner, and I would be happy if we landed him now. Had his issues at UL but did well enough that I could see him having success with a fresh start.
Bosh/Jack/literally any other GT former player. No. Stop it with the stupid belief that because they played here it means anything. It doesn't. Love Jack but he has about 18 months of coaching experience as an Assistant in the NBA. Same with Warren and Labarrie. Prior GT ties don't mean anything.
Amir Abdur-Rahim - There are several names that basically boil down to "their team is good this year so what about them?" choices which I'd rather not go to. After all Pastner went 31-5 in year 4 at Memphis. I'd rather not rely on a one year wonder and take them juts because of that. However of those types, I'd say Rahim is the one that is most appealing. Local guy who should already have some recruiting ties. Has seemingly built Kennesaw State up, although doesn't have extended success. I wouldn't want to go into the coaching search if he was the best we could reasonably go for, but it would be a good risk/reward type of hire if we swung through some better choices.
Anyways, some names not mentioned (or that I missed).
Stan Jones - Longtime FSU assistant. If we're going the unproven as a head coach route, I'd rather go for someone like Jones than someone known for just their recruiting. Similar reason to why Tommy Lloyd was a good hire at Arizona. Not my ideal type of hire, and no idea if he'd have any interest (I'd sort of doubt it) but someone I hadn't seen mentioned.
Bob Richey - I think someone mentioned him, but I missed it this time I went through. Won over 70% of his overall games and 73% of his conference games at Furman. Hasn't managed to make the NCAAT in what I believe is a one bid league, but has had sustained success otherwise.
Ritchie McKay - Liberty coach to Virginia Asisstant back to Liberty coach. Mixed success as head coach overall but it seems that his time under Bennett helped him as he's got liberty on a nice 5 year run, including this year.
Andy Enfield - Okay, obviously a dreamer pick, but he was a long time east coast guy, born in Pennsylvania, played at Johns Hopkins, then coached for 15 years split between the celtics and FSU as an assistant and then FGCU before going to USC. Has had success at USC but not overwhelming success, and maybe if we opened up the bank account, actually committed to having an elite program, we could make a compelling argument to bring him back to the east coast, especially since the Pac 12 has some inherent drawbacks when it comes to basketball that make it harder to have success (like second in 2018 in conference but going to the NIT). Would it be a pipe dream? Probably. But maybe our AD will actually be serious to improving the program and not just pay it lip service like he did with the football coaching search.
