The Gold Is Blinded By The Shine

According to the Journal-Sentinel, possible Crean replacements at Marquette include--
Tony Bennett (Wash. State head coach), Sean Miller (Xavier HC), the Davidson head coach, and Chris Lowery (So. Illinois HC). They must be kidding. Bennett and Miller turned down the Indiana job, or at least excluded themselves from consideration. That's the job Crean left for, dunderheads. No way Miller or Bennett are interested in the MU job. Plus, Bennett's style of play would be anathema to MU's current, run and gun, foul and turn-the-ball-over players. And the Davidson coach is far too old, far too East Coast, and far too entrenched with his sweet deal at Davidson to leave. Plus, Lowery turned down several high profile jobs after SIU's excellent season a year ago, and he's an SIU grad. Again, it seems very unlikely that he'd leave for the Marquette job. Did Marquette beat writer Todd Rosiak just pull those names out of a hat? Ridiculous.

The other two names he suggests are somewhat legit, in my estimation-- the coach at Virginia Commonwealth, who's racked up a good Colonial League record and who managed to beat Duke in the first round last year; and the coach at Wright State, who's had similar success in the Horizon League, though his team was better last season. Really, I don't think MU is going to be able to snag a successful head coach from another large conference. They have nice practice facilities, yes, and they play in a relatively high profile league, but that's pretty much all they have going for them. The school is just ok, the Marquette interchange is not that pleasant of an area, Milwaukee doesn't produce that much talent, the Bradley Center stinks, the "tradition" of Al McGuire is sort of a millstone since it creates unreasonable expectations, being in the Big East means tons of lengthy travel (road trip to Tampa, New Jersey or Morgantown anyone?), and the league will likely be dominated by G'Town, Louisville, UConn, Pitt, West Virginia and the 'Cuse for the foreseeable future. Looking for a successful coach from a smaller league, or for a talented assistant from a successful program (Crean came directly from Izzo's staff at Sparty) is probably their likeliest bet.