Coaching search

I thought it might be useful to have a thread for discussion of possible candidates, rumors, etc.
 
Someone at Swish Appeal posted this: Potential Candidates For Head Coach Of The Michigan Women's Basketball Team
 
A couple of the suggested candidates seem a bit more plausible to me than the ones Goricki came up, including Tricia Cullop, head coach at Toledo, and Dean Lockwood, an assistant at Tennessee with deep ties to the state of Michigan.
 
This person mentions that both Lockwood and another candidate on his or her list, Melanie Balcomb, Vanderbilt's head coach, had both been mentioned as possible candidates during Michigan's last coaching search.

It was interesting that the article above listed Barnes but not Plitzuweit.  However, any list that has AnnMarie Gilbert as #2 is clearly out of touch.

Frank99
It was interesting that the article above listed Barnes but not Plitzuweit.  However, any list that has AnnMarie Gilbert as #2 is clearly out of touch.

 
Are you sure that's a ranked list? It could just be numbered 1-5. I agree Gilbert is not a realistic candidate, but at least the person mentioned the NCAA cloud she has hanging over her. As I said above, a couple of the other candidates look pretty good to me, and the person who posted this seemed pretty knowledgeable given all the details he or she provided and reasons why a candidate might make sense for Michigan (e.g., head coaching experience, Michigan or Midwestern ties).

I assumed it was a ranking but it isn't clear.  Maybe it's more normal than I think but I find Barnes's career path a bit strange.  Going from being a successful head coaching position in the GLIAC to an assistant position seems backward to me.  I know Plitzuweit's path was similar, but Merchant and Borseth never took a lesser position in a move.  

I'd be interested in Cullop.

http://www.utrockets.com/...D=18000&ATCLID=1595573

Cullop has had a couple of good years at Toledo but a pretty long mediocre run at Evansville.  I don't know the details but her resume doesn't excite me.

When judging previous head coaching stints, I don't think it's fair to expect someone taking his or her first head coaching job to have immediate success. They have to learn how to be a head coach. To me, Cullop's resume has a very appealing upward trajectory to it (and it's somewhat similar to Brady Hoke's trajectory). I liked what the Swish Appeal person had to say about Cullop in this post:

As someone who has interviewed many coaches, she by far stands out as she has amazing charisma. Cullop has a presence about her that draws people toward her, she has great leadership qualities.

She sounds like a very strong candidate, but she would need to hire an assistant with recruiting ties in Michigan (and preferably the Detroit area).
 
Last year, Cullop received a contract extension through the 2019-2020 season with a base salary of $193,600. I wonder what sort of buyout she has with a contract that long.
 
At least some Toledo fans don't think she'll leave Toledo yet. See the Would Cullop go to Michigan? fan forum thread.

FWIW, Goricki, in this article on Gilbert's resignation, claims that Shane Clipfell, associate head coach at MSU and a former EMU assistant, is the front-runner for the WMU job, and he also mentions Plitzuweit as a possible candidate for the EMU job.
 
EDIT: Sorry--obviously, I meant to indicate she was a "possible" candidate. Given that the job just opened, it's also obvious that there aren't any official candidates.

Raoul


FWIW, Goricki, in this article....... he also mentions Plitzuweit as a candidate for the EMU job.

Other candidates _could_ include Michigan associate head coach Dawn Plitzuweit, who guided Grand Valley State to the Division II national title in 2006, Bowling Green associate head coach Jennifer Roos and Detroit assistant Mike Geary.

One further thought on Coach Plitzuweit: McCabe claimed that her succeeding Borseth "appears unlikely now" but that came from someone also claiming "there appeared to be tension between Brandon and Borseth," and to me McCabe seemed to be implying that Brandon wasn't happy with the program and wanted to make a change.
 
But it now appears that Brandon had offered Borseth a contract extension, so apparently he felt the program was headed in the right direction. That, to me, opens up the possibility of Coach Plitzuweit getting the job and being able to carry out what would likely be a very smooth transition.
 
Here's one other person's opinion on this: Chris Solari, who covers MSU women's basketball for the Lansing State Journal, tweeted this on the day Borseth announced his resignation:

Expect Michigan to give strong consideration to Borseth's assistant Dawn Plitzuweit, the former Grand Valley State coach.

Regarding Tricia Cullop, I took a look at Toledo's roster and found that, in addition to several players from Ohio and a couple from Indiana, there's also one player from Saugatuck and two sophomores from Detroit Southeastern. In addition, Toledo's 2012 class includes a player from Southfield Lathrop. So, Cullop has had some success recruiting in the state of Michigan.
 
It's also interesting that she has a freshman from Spain on the roster.

I was looking at the current D1 openings, and Michigan and Georgetown are the only major conference jobs currently open. (Boston College has been filled by the coach from Denver).

http://espn.go.com/womens...changes-2012-13-season

You'd think that we'd have a great pool of candidates looking to move up to a BCS job, especially with the facility upgrades.

I hadn't posted this before, but that list from ESPN reminded me. Shimmy Gray-Miller was let go at St. Louis. As far as I know, Shimmy was our only player alum to ever hold a D1 head coaching position.

There are a few former players and managers on D1 staffs. Heather Oesterle is at CMU along with Phil Wendland (manager) who's the DBO. Temple Brown's at Michigan State. Yolanda Cole (manager) is at Florida Atlantic. Former player Darius Taylor from the men's program is on Dawn Staley's staff at South Carolina.

I wonder in some ways if the lack of development of players into coaches is a result of the coaching turnover or the lack of success as a program as a whole. When you look at Hutch's coaching tree on the softball side, she's got former players on the staffs at Michigan, Penn State, Indiana, Minnesota, Eastern, Miami Oh, Portland State, etc., off the top of my head. Does it take a winning program or a long-time head coach to plant coaching seeds?

Xavier has had great success having hired a former assistant coach from Notre Dame, who had no former head coaching experience.  I'd think either Barnes or Dawn would be good.  Maybe Stacy the grad assistant, who was a former WNBA player could move up to assistant.  We have some good people, which would give some continuity to a program that has been on the rise.
There has been a lot of turnover already in head coaching this year and we would be getting the people no one else wanted to dance with if we go outside the program.

We need some aggressive recruiters.  Doesn't necessarily have to be the head coach, but it helps.  Beilein's recruiting went up considerably when he completely cleaned house and brought in Bacari Alexander and Laval Jordan.

Frank99
We need some aggressive recruiters.  Doesn't necessarily have to be the head coach, but it helps.  Beilein's recruiting went up considerably when he completely cleaned house and brought in Bacari Alexander and Laval Jordan.

 
Alexander and Jordan were great additions to Beilein's staff, but I'd argue that Jeff Meyer has had more of an impact on the recruiting trail for the men's team. He was the lead recruiter for Glenn Robinson III, Nik Stauskas, Austin Hatch, and Mark Donnal and also played a key role in Michigan landing Trey Burke. Meyer has deep ties to the state of Indiana, which is one reason Beilein has been having so much success recruiting that state.
 
One thing I'd like to see with the women's team--regardless of who the new head coach turns out to be--is a more diverse coaching staff. And by diverse, I don't mean only in terms of ethnic background, but more importantly more of a diversity in the areas in which the assistants are able to successfully recruit. John Barnes may be a fine coach, but his addition to the staff never made much sense to me from a recruiting standpoint. How many coaches with ties to Michigan Tech do you need on one staff? I realize Borseth was put in a tough spot with the timing of Mike Williams's departure, so his options may have been limited at that point. But looking forward, the new staff needs to have coaches who can land players from the Detroit area--including the city of Detroit itself (and how about landing someone from Detroit Country Day, given the wealth of talent that flows through that school)--and also metro areas in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin--the entire Midwest, essentially. Basically, the new staff needs to have coaches with a variety of established ties to areas throughout the Midwest.

Borseth spent nine years in Wisconsin yet he was unable to sign a single player from that state while at Michigan. Plitzuweit spent five years on the west side of this state and four years at UWGB and she was unable to sign any from Wisconsin and signed two from the west side of the state, Hardley (a glorified practice player) and Goree (TBA).

Why was Michigan unable to pull in a Taylor Wurtz, a Samantha Logic or a Destiny Williams with the coaches who had ties to those areas?

On the other hand, Burnett's staff had zero ties to the great lakes region and they were able to pull in kids from Detroit right away. If I remember correctly, Burnett's third class was ranked in the top-25 by recruiting services.

I think it's a crapshoot.

Recruiting is hardly a crapshoot. Two key elements are a willingness to put in the long hours that are necessary and having ties to your main recruiting base. David Brandon made it very clear during the football coaching search the importance of being able to recruit the Midwest--and I don't see any reason why he won't take the same approach with the women's basketball job. I'll be shocked if he hires a head coach without any ties to the Midwest.
 
Allie Havers, by the way, is also from West Michigan.

Burnett's staff certainly put in the very long hours. Of course they were all single without kids, too.

I'm aware of where Havers is from, thanks. She is not yet signed.

P.S. I was at Borseth's hiring press conference. One of the student reporters asked about recruiting Detroit. He was aware of the talent there, but admittedly knew nothing more. He made reference to an old-time open gym where all of the best male players used to spend their time (St. Cecilia's or something?). He seemed very out of touch to me.

I inadvertently left Jeff Meyer from my list, my main point being that assistants can sometimes be more important than the head coach in recruiting.  Our next year's senior class was good, especially when we had Hollins, but we really have hardly any meaningful minutes from the next two classes.  Elmblad, who originally took a pass on us, started several games but often found the bench early in the game never to be seen again.  Recruiting seemed to be on a downward arc and I wonder how much his blowup video was used against him.

For those of you who don't know, Lisa Savoury took over direct supervision of the WBB program this year. She was Kevin's DBO before being promoted to assist Bitsy Ritt and has now risen up the administration ranks.
 
I don't know if she's leading the search or not, but you can tell she knows who's out there and has plenty of experience in WBB. http://www.mgoblue.com/sports/w-baskbl/mtt/savoury_lisa00.html

Boredseth is coming back. He found out that someone is living in his old house. Gas prices are not $2.30 as before. Brett Favre is gone. His dog TOTO wanted to stay in AA. He hurt his ankles clicking his heels three times. Sometimes you think living in the past will be bring happiness.The grass isn't always GREEN BAYER when you go back.Maybe he thought ,since I can't beat a team that wears Green...I can become one. You let alot of people down.Enjoy your LONGGGGGGGGGG bus rides.

Here are some rumors floating around the Internet:

• Jim Jabir, head coach at Dayton, mentioned for the Michigan job, along with Melanie Balcomb and Dean Lockwood (see Jabir's bio here)
• Goestenkors reportedly contacted about the job but says she's not interested
• Clipfell and Plitzuweit apparently the finalists for the WMU job; interviews are supposed to be finished this week
• Plitzuweit may be a candidate for the Kent State opening

Much prefer Balcomb or Lockwood to Jabir.  Solid resume from Balcomb but I like Lockwood's Michigan roots and Tennessee experience.  Curious as to where you saw these names mentioned as candidates.

That Swish Appeal list of "potential" candidates prompted a response from Lockwood that was reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel's GoVolsXtra last Friday:

Dean Lockwood has been a popular guy lately.
 
The Tennessee women's basketball assistant coach was mentioned in a story on swishappeal.com on Thursday afternoon, listing possible candidates for the head coaching opening at Michigan. Since then, he's heard from colleagues and friends. He even received a text message Friday morning from Tyler Summitt, the son of Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt.
 
Lockwood said that he hasn't been contacted regarding the job, nor has he applied. He has been amused and slightly bewildered by both the report and the response.
 
"I'm a little curious about it to be honest,'' he said.

 

Balcomb was supposedly a candidate the last time around as was Terri Mitchell from Marquette.

The more I look at Balcomb's record the better I like it. Excellent record in a strong conference at a school with great academics.  OSU took Foster from Vandy, time for us to steal Balcomb.  Might be hard to get her to leave, but with all the money we're spending on renovations I wouldn't skimp on the coach's salary if she's the right person.

Balcomb evidently has flirted with leaving Vanderbilt before. A year ago, someone posted this in a message board thread as part of a list of possible candidates for the California head coaching job:

Melanie Balcomb, Vanderbilt. Maybe the 3rd time will be the charm. She was a runner-up when we picked Caren Horstmeyer and again when we picked Joanne Boyle. Obviously has some deep attraction to this position and/or area. Anyone who wonders why she would leave Vanderbilt is not familiar with her previous flirtations with other schools.

She certainly can recruit. Her 2012 Vanderbilt class is ranked 24th by ESPN, and Blue Star has five of her 2012 recruits ranked in the top 200 (including Heather Bowe, a former Michigan target). She also has a commit from a top 100 player in the 2013 class.
 
Here's a Tennessean profile of her from earlier this year: Vanderbilt's Melanie Balcomb quietly built a solid program, reputation

The long-time poster on the Vandy board on Scout, VandyWhit, recently said this about the factors in recruiting to the school.

"Most obviously, Vanderbilt is pretty demanding academically. Some highly regarded prospects can't pass admissions, and even among those who can, all of them aren't looking for that type of environment. In their classrooms, their classroom peers will mostly include the kind of super-high achievers that they knew in high school (the mid 50% range on the SAT goes from 1380 to 1550). Vanderbilt has terrific support services for student athletes, but some kids just don't want that kind of academic demands while they're pursuing their basketball dreams.

Then there are the social/demographic characteristics of Vanderbilt, Nashville, Tennessee, and the South. Vanderbilt is a relatively small private research university, with only about 6,000 undergraduates, and whose main fame in sports has been the futility of its football program over the past several decades (hopefully James Franklin is changing that perception nationally, but we're still an SEC school that doesn't fill up a 40,000-seat stadium).  Vanderbilt is pretty diverse in political/social leanings (which some prospective families would see as an asset, others not so much), but overall Tennessee is still part of the Deep South. Nashville is a city, not a college town, a positive for some, not for others.  Vanderbilt's location is fixed. It's close enough to be "close to home" for some prospects, not for others. That's important to some kids, not for others. "

I've read more than one opinion through the years that Balcomb flirts with leaving because she knows she will always be fighting that "other school" in Tennessee; although she has had some success against the Lady Vols throughout her tenure.

McCabe article in Free Press: Michigan interviews Penn State's Coquese Washington for women's basketball job
 

Former Flint Central all-stater Coquese Washington, who guided Penn State to the Big Ten regular-season title and a spot in the Sweet 16 this season, interviewed today for the vacant Michigan job.
 
Penn State athletic director David Joyner confirmed to the Free Press that U-M asked for and was granted permission to speak with Washington about its vacancy.
 
...
 
Earlier in the search process, U-M approached Waterford native Gail Goestenkors about the job, but Goestenkors did not show interest. Goestenkors formerly coached Duke and Texas.

It would seem like an odd time for Washington to leave Penn State. This AP article on her from last week gives an idea of what she'd be leaving behind:

Along with the four returning starters, Penn State will welcome McDonald's All-American Candice Agee to the mix next season. Agee, a 6-foot center, will enroll in the summer session. Guard Dara Taylor, another McDonald's All-American, will also be eligible next season. The transfer from Maryland sat out this season due to NCAA rules.

Why would she come to Michigan? The chance to return to her home state? Perhaps a very lucrative contract?
 
Two years ago, Washington received a contract extension through the 2013-14 season. I haven't been able to find anything on her current salary.
 
In their preseason top 10 released a couple of days ago, Sports Illustrated had PSU ranked #7:

7. Penn State (26-7) The Big Ten champs -- who advanced to the Sweet 16 before running into UConn -- have a fantastic backcourt with junior Maggie Lucas (19.5 points and 4.7 assists) and Alex Bentley (14.1 points, 4.7 assists and 3.0 steals). The duo are part of a deep team -- Penn State returns nine of its top 10 scorers -- that's led by up-and-coming coach Coquese Washington. Scoring isn't an issue for the Lady Lions (they averaged 74.8 points per game last season) but rebounding (Penn State had just a +1.2 rebounding margin) must improve heading forward. "I'd rather be where we are now than where we were five years ago, but I'm still not satisfied," Washington recently told the AP. "I think we can be better than a Sweet 16 team."

If Brandon manages to land her, it'll be quite a feat, in my opinion.

Co would be great. I was always disappointed that PSU got her and we didn't. She's already shown success in recruiting and has improved her program each year.

Why leave PSU? I can imagine a few reasons. Happy Valley seems like it can be a pretty isolated place. She's got a fan base of long-time Portland supporters who will never forgive her for taking over from their longtime coach, and she'll never be good enough for them. She can come home, be near a large metro area, etc..

Could be that the scandals at Penn State have affected the whole athletic department.  Lots of disarray with multiple administrators getting fired and all the uncertainty that goes with that.  I could see that it's time to get out of Dodge.

I suppose every coach has his or her detractors, but judging by the general reaction to this news on Twitter and elsewhere, there will be plenty of shocked (and disappointed) Penn State fans if Washington leaves for Michigan. I'm just very skeptical that she'd be willing to leave behind a team with what looks a legitimate shot at the Final Four next year to take over a Michigan team that, let's face it, will need at least a few more years of building to get to that level.

If she wouldn't leave she probably shouldn't have interviewed.  I've already seen a posting on their Rivals board that says that any coach that would interview at Michigan should be immediately fired.  Maybe she has the gumption to use this as leverage for a raise, but that's a dangerous game.  I don't think Happy Valley is a happy place to be right now.  Maybe she sees things that she no longer wants to be associated with.

As Kevin Borseth has recently shown us, being home is important to some. Coquese's husband is also from Flint.

This is a nice piece on Washington from when she was hired at PSU:
http://www.personal.psu.e...CoqueseWashington.html

Wow, that would be an awesome development!!  Sounds like we have some great irons in the fire, with Coaches Washington, Balcomb, Barnes and Dawn all great possibilities. And if Stacey Lovelace could move into an assistant coach spot that would be great, too.

I'm excited about how the situation is progressing. If you think about it, we've had a major applicant on campus within a week of Kevin's resignation. This tells me that the administration is serious, is working quickly and is offering some good money.  

Goricki article in the News: Source: Penn State's Washington interviews for U-M women's job

It appears Goestenkors, a native of Waterford, wants to take a year off after resigning at Texas. Washington, a Flint Central graduate, might be the frontrunner.
 
Sources close to the situation said Washington interviewed for the Michigan job Wednesday. She was back at Penn State Thursday morning, and in meetings, according to a person working in the Penn State coaches' office.

 
Goricki also talks about Balcomb and mentions a different potential candidate from Tennessee:
   

One coach Michigan's has not contacted is Vanderbilt's Melanie Balcomb.

"No, I haven't received a call from anyone at Michigan to ask for permission to talk to Melanie like I did the last time they were looking," said Vanderbilt athletic director Dave Williams, a Detroit Mumford and Northern Michigan University graduate. "We're real happy with Melanie and looking forward to her leading us to the Final Four."
 
. . .
 
Toledo coach Tricia Cullop and Tennessee assistant Daedra Charles also are considered candidates for the Michigan job.

I think it's worth noting that just because Michigan hasn't officially reached out to Balcomb, it doesn't mean they haven't gauged her interest in the job through back channels.

The Penn State related websites have comments that are rather nasty about her interviewing with us.  They also have comments that Coach Washington may be looking to move due to some discontent sweeping through Penn State's faculty and staff and / or to be closer to her parents.  Granted, the commentators probably know nothing.  But if true ... good for us!