Most of the jobs in college basketball have been filled (all but one in the major conferences and that one at Miami appears close to being filled). With the hiring mostly done, its time to evaluate the hires starting in the West. Each school will get two grades here. The first is either for the school and their decision to terminate the previous coach or for the coach if he left for a better job on his own. The second is the grade for the new hire. For purposes of this exercise, the West is any school in a league primarily situated in the Pacific or Mountain timezone irregardless of where the school actually is (hence why Louisiana Tech will be found here).
Cal State Bakersfield – Didn't renew the contract of Keith Brown after six seasons (68-105)
Grade for termination: F – Bakersfield is an independent. Independents never win in college basketball at this point and independents certainly don't win this soon after transitioning to Division I. Considering Brown was over .500 his first two seasons before moving to Division I and he has no conference affiliation, he had no chance. This job looks like a coach killer at this point.
Grade for new hire: A+ - The new coach is former National Coach of the Year Rod Barnes who got Mississippi to the Sweet 16 in 2001 when he won the Naismith Coaching Award. While he has been down of late and recently not retained by CAA bottom dweller Georgia St., anytime an independent program can get a coach with that kind of resume, it is a home run.
Eastern Washington – Didn't renew the contract of Kirk Earlywine after four seasons (42-78)
Grade for termination: B- – Earlywine probably deserved another year, but he has run the ship aground in his tenure at Eastern Washington. Before he got there the Eagles were a solid .500 team with a recent NCAA Tournament appearance. Since then, they have been awful.
Grade for new hire: B – The new coach is Jim Hayford, formerly the head coach at Whitworth University. Whitworth has been very good under Hayford with five straight NCAA Tournament appearances and a winning percentage just short of 80%. The only question here is recruiting as Hayford will have to recruit at a Division I level and many coaches making transitions like this one have failed miserably at that task over the years in both football and basketball.
Fresno St. - Steve Cleveland “resigned” and was reassigned to another position in the athletic department after six seasons (92-98).
Grade for termination: D – I know the record wasn't great, but Cleveland inherited a program on probation and cleaned it up. Considering that, he deserved to finish out the remaining two years on his contract to see if he could build a winner.
Grade for new hire: B+ - The new coach is Texas assistant Rodney Terry. Terry should do well in his new position. He is coming from a strong program where nearly everyone has a reputation as a strong recruiter. The small dings on the grade are for his lack of head coaching experience and the fact that he comes from Texas where the Longhorns have been underachieving considering the talent level for some time now.
Louisiana Tech – Fired coach Kerry Rupp after four seasons (57-69)
Grade for termination: D – Rupp and Tech had an awful year last season, but they are just one year removed from a 24 win season that ended in the CBI postseason tournament. Considering the pending implosion of the WAC, stability was likely a better option.
Grade for new hire: F – I don't care about recruiting reputation which new coach Michael White has. I want some results and White doesn't have them considering he has been an assistant at Ole Miss who hasn't been in the NCAA Tournament since the early 2000s. This is truly a terrible hire, especially since Louisiana Tech emphasized its Southern location but plays in a western league. This move makes a little more sense if Louisiana Tech heads to the Sun Belt as some expect them to do, but even that only gets this hire to a D- if they're lucky.
Pepperdine – Tom Asbury retired as Pepperdine coach after three seasons (28-68)
Grade for termination: N/A – Asbury was Pepperdine's coach during one of its best runs in the last 80s and early 90s. He came back to stabilize the program that had fallen apart before passing the reins to top assistant and former Pepperdine player Marty Wilson.
Grade for new hire: A – While this doesn't seem like it should be an A, the Pepperdine program has collapsed after a great run that included 11 NCAA Tournaments between 1976 and 2002. Wilson is a former player and served as an assistant Tony Fuller and Lorenzo Romar in the mid-90s and knows what it takes to build a winner again at this school.
UC Davis – Gary Stewart stepped down after eight seasons (88-148)
Grade for termination: N/A – Stewart stepped down on his own and was not forced out like Cleveland at Fresno St.
Grade for new hire: N/A, likely not good – UC Davis still has not hired a new coach. This is a bad sign considering the vacancy has existed since before the Final Four started and many, many coaching deals for both head coaches and assistants happen there.
UNLV – Lon Kruger left UNLV after seven years to take the head coaching job at Oklahoma (161-71)
Grade for Kruger's decision: B – The money was extreme ($2.2 million a year for a guys who made one Final Four in his career and is a bit of a serial job-hopper is insane) making Kruger feel like he had to go. That may or may not have been the case with UNLV on solid footing because of his rebuilding job.
Grade for new hire: A- - The new coach is former UNLV player and assistant and BYU assistant Dave Rice. This hire is all about recruiting and it will be good. Rice may or may not be able to coach, but he will deliver players and they will likely be better than what Kruger was bringing in. If he is as good of a gameday coach as Kruger, this will be a homerun. If not, the program still likely won't slip. Either Rice or Reggie Theus would have been very good hires.
Utah – Fired coach Jim Boylen after four seasons (69-60)
Grade for firing: C – Would be lower if not for the transition to the Pac-12 that is coming. Boylen deserved more than four years to rebuild this program, especially with the 24 win season and NCAA Tournament berth in year two. At the same, there was a sense Boylen couldn't hack it and going into the Pac-12, a tougher league top to bottom than the Mountain West wasn't going to help matters.
Grade for new hire: A+ - The new coach is former Montana and Milwaukee Bucks head coach Larry Krystkowiak. Krystkowiak had great success going to the NCAA Tournament in both of his years at Montana before jumping to Milwaukee. He left Montana on solid ground and he should be able to recruit to Utah without too much of a problem, especially with the new Pac-12 affiliation. Easily the biggest home hire of the coaching season.
Wyoming – Fired Heath Schroyer after four seasons (49-68)
Grade for firing: B – Schroyer quite obviously was never going to win at Wyoming The ding is for doing it mid season. Considering Wyoming was going to have to wait no matter when they fired the coach, it wouldn't have hurt anything to wait until after the Mountain West Tournament.
Grade for new hire: D+ - The new coach is former Wyoming coach Larry Shyatt. The last time he was here, Shyatt coached for one season and then left for Clemson. Considering that, I don't know why they would want him back considering the program improved once he left under successor Steve McClain before stagnating (in fact, McClain led the Cowboys to their only NCAA tournament appearance since 1988 in 2002). Also, once Shyatt got to Clemson (taking over for Rick Barnes), he promptly ran the thing off a cliff getting fired after five seasons of mostly losing and leaving a long rebuilding process for successor Oliver Purnell. The only things going for him are that he coached at Wyoming once before (though in a different era considering the Mountain West didn't yet exist) and he has been serving as an assistant at Florida under Billy Donovan. Nonetheless, he seems better suited to that assistant role than a head coaching role.
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