RE: Conference RPI Rankings
Long-term, for the PAC, they need to follow the model that the SEC had when they hired Mike Tranghese as a basketball-consultant. He encouraged programs to hire name coaches, pump a little bit more resources into the basketball-side of things, and schedule tougher OOC. I believe he was a big reason why so many SEC schools began to hire "proven" name coaches like Avery Johnson (Alabama), Rick Barnes (Tennessee), Ben Howland (MSU), Tom Crean (Georgia) and Cuonzo Martin (Missouri) in recent years. Toss those names in with guys like Calipari, Mike Anderson, Bruce Pearl, Frank Martin and Billy Kennedy, you have a pretty successful collection of conference coaches. The improvements have definitely shown.
No disrespect to the current PAC coaches, but very few have them have had tournament success at their current schools. Sean Miller, Dana Altman and Larry Kryskowiak all have, but the rest have not. Ernie Kent, while successful at Oregon, has not been competitive at WSU. Similarly, Oregon State has been a door-mat for the conference for quite some time. Mike Hopkins appears to be doing good things at Washington, I expect them to continue progressing into the future (unless he gets poached by Syracuse when Boeheim inevitably retires), as has Bobby Hurley at ASU (although I could see him returning to the East Coast in coming years). However, Stanford (Haase), California (Jones) and UCLA (N/A) are all dramatically underachieving. A number of those schools really need to invest in proven-name head coaches to help get PAC Basketball back on track.
It would be pretty cool to see someone like Earl Watson hired at UCLA, or Jason Kidd at California, as that appears to be a growing trend in college basketball these days (Penny - Memphis, Ewing - Georgetown, Mullin - St. John's). Frankly, I think the WCC has some really strong coaches (in addition to Mark Few) that could do well at a number of those programs. The WCC has done a great job at getting fits for their basketball programs (Randy Bennett, Mike Dunlap, Lorenzo Romar, Herb Sendek).
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