What do you think are some of the worst or premature firings in college basketball history?

I have to say Tark being ousted at UNLV was crippling to the program. He would have coached another decade and most likely kept the program flying high. Hell, they had that non-televised season where they lost like two games and were ineligible for the Dance.

Another one to less of a degree perhaps is UMass canning Bruiser Flint after the five seasons following Calipari and a .650 overall conference winning percentage. He made two Dances and an NIT. They've only made one Dance since 1998 and they fired that guy.* I believe Flint would have stuck around long term and kept them competitive. To put this in perspective, the current coach has a .359 conference winning percentage after four seasons. Yikes.



* to be fair they've had a few deep NIT runs including one where they were obviously a tournament team.

Bruiser Flint? Yeah, he was super successful at Drexel. UMass messed up big, by letting him go. :/

(04-13-2021 11:05 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Bruiser Flint? Yeah, he was super successful at Drexel. UMass messed up big, by letting him go. :/

Absolutely. Bruiser Flint won 19 in a row in a 29-win season - at the #6 school in the city. Good point.

East Carolina fired their current head coach a long time ago. After going through several other coaches, ECU finally decided to rehire their current coach.

Older:
Joey Meyer (DePaul)
Bob Huggins (Cincinnati)
Bobby Knight (Indiana)
Rick Barnes (Texas)
Al Skinner (Boston College)

Recent:
Bryce Drew (Vanderbilt)
Scott Cross (UT Arlington)
Jason Shay (ETSU)

Lefty Driesell was one of my favorites, and it's a shame he was out of major coaching after 1986. He was only 55; it would have been interesting to see how he would have navigated the fallout after Len Bias had he remained as coach at Maryland.

Knight was caught on camera assaulting a player.
Driesell was fired in the Bias fallout

Was Westhead fired after Gathers died?

(04-13-2021 12:32 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Knight was caught on camera assaulting a player.
Driesell was fired in the Bias fallout

Was Westhead fired after Gathers died?

He left to take the Denver Nuggets job.

Tony Shaver at William & Mary after 2018-19. Basically his entire team transferred after that. They would have been prohibitive favorite to win the CAA and go to the NCAAs for first time ever (which would have been cancelled), but alone Justin Pierce went to North Carolina, Chase Audige to Northwestern, Luke Loewe to Minnesota, Matt Milon to UCF, and another guy went to UMBC.

Some might contend Vanderbilt's politely showing Kevin Stallings the door was (as we now look back) a bad move (VU has struggle a bit with Bryce Drew and, now, Jerry Stackhouse).

But I said at the time (and still feel): "Good riddance."

Not the worst from a national perspective, but the worst for Iowa was when Iowa fired Dr. Tom Davis. Lets just say things did not work out as expected.

Everybody expected Steve Alford to be the new savior at Iowa. Years later Alford ran away to New Mexico right before he was going to be fired at Iowa. Then Iowa hired Butler's head coach, lickliter, but should have hired their assistant coach Brad Stevens instead.

Lickliter was a disaster at Iowa and was fired after only 3 seasons. Fran McCaffery managed to get the program almost back to Tom Davis levels, but has yet to get to the sweet 16 or win the Big Ten, which is why Tom Davis was fired in the first place

(04-13-2021 12:24 PM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote:  Older:
Joey Meyer (DePaul)
Bob Huggins (Cincinnati)
Bobby Knight (Indiana)
Rick Barnes (Texas)
Al Skinner (Boston College)

Recent:
Bryce Drew (Vanderbilt)
Scott Cross (UT Arlington)
Jason Shay (ETSU)

Solid list and I forgot about Joey Meyer. Al Skinner seemed to be run out of town and he was really establishing something there. I have to think he would be like Hamilton at FSU by now with that kind of experience.

(04-13-2021 11:22 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-13-2021 11:05 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Bruiser Flint? Yeah, he was super successful at Drexel. UMass messed up big, by letting him go. :/

Absolutely. Bruiser Flint won 19 in a row in a 29-win season - at the #6 school in the city. Good point.

I guess he didn't read how dismal they've been in conference since Flint.

(04-13-2021 12:32 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  Knight was caught on camera assaulting a player.

No doubt, but that wasn't what got him fired. After the tape from several years prior came to light, the school put Knight on zero tolerance policy moving forward. It was only after Knight grabbed a student by the arm for failing to address him as "Coach Knight" or "Mr. Knight" that the school dismissed him.

IU handled the termination of Knight poorly. It has failed to reach the same levels of success since.

(04-13-2021 01:16 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-13-2021 11:22 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-13-2021 11:05 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Bruiser Flint? Yeah, he was super successful at Drexel. UMass messed up big, by letting him go. :/

Absolutely. Bruiser Flint won 19 in a row in a 29-win season - at the #6 school in the city. Good point.

I guess he didn't read how dismal they've been in conference since Flint.

Flint went 3-15 his last year. Spiker had the same record his first and has had better conference records since. I guess all coaches should keep their jobs for 15 years without going to the NCAA tournament

(04-13-2021 12:52 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Some might contend Vanderbilt's politely showing Kevin Stallings the door was (as we now look back) a bad move (VU has struggle a bit with Bryce Drew and, now, Jerry Stackhouse).

But I said at the time (and still feel): "Good riddance."

Would have been interesting to see what Eddie Fogler would have done if Vandy ponied up and tried to keep him around.

FOGLER LEAVING VANDY ON PRINCIPLE

(04-13-2021 01:37 PM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  

(04-13-2021 01:16 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(04-13-2021 11:22 AM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  

(04-13-2021 11:05 AM)DoubleRSU Wrote:  Bruiser Flint? Yeah, he was super successful at Drexel. UMass messed up big, by letting him go. :/

Absolutely. Bruiser Flint won 19 in a row in a 29-win season - at the #6 school in the city. Good point.

I guess he didn't read how dismal they've been in conference since Flint.

Flint went 3-15 his last year. Spiker had the same record his first and has had better conference records since. I guess all coaches should keep their jobs for 15 years without going to the NCAA tournament

Um, what does what Bruiser Flint did at Drexel later in his career have to do with what he could have done if he hadn't had the rug pulled from under him at a better program, in a better conference, with better resources, and a legacy of being the assistant to the greatest coach to walk on that campus?

Or alternately, you can look at his record at UMass which is better in-conference than anyone that came after him.

Orlando Antigua at USF*

(04-13-2021 01:01 PM)goofus Wrote:  Not the worst from a national perspective, but the worst for Iowa was when Iowa fired Dr. Tom Davis. Lets just say things did not work out as expected.

Everybody expected Steve Alford to be the new savior at Iowa. Years later Alford ran away to New Mexico right before he was going to be fired at Iowa. Then Iowa hired Butler's head coach, lickliter, but should have hired their assistant coach Brad Stevens instead.

Lickliter was a disaster at Iowa and was fired after only 3 seasons. Fran McCaffery managed to get the program almost back to Tom Davis levels, but has yet to get to the sweet 16 or win the Big Ten, which is why Tom Davis was fired in the first place

Remember when Tom Davis coached at Lafayette College in the Patriot League.

Jim Valvano (NCSt)
Steve Fisher (Michigan)
Lefty Driesell (Maryland)

The mid 80s to late 90s must have been a time when administrators cleaned-house first and asked questions later.