Portland is a tough place to win. No one has won there consistently. Gonzaga dominates the conference the WCC.
Don’t confuse it with Portland State, which is another tough place to win.
More on the untimely Lew Hill passing. Spent time as an assistant at ECU under both Eddie Payne and Joe Dooley (1994-98) and then at Texas A&M under Melvin Watkins (1998-2004) after the latter left Charlotte. Ended up being a long time assistant with Lon Kruger at UNLV and Oklahoma prior to landing the HC job at UTRGV.
No surprise though timing sorta odd with end of the regular season just weeks away:
The Eagles should give applicants a Psychological Exam and hire the candidate with the closest profile to a kamikaze pilot.
Looks like ex-Niner Tyler Bertram is losing his current coach:
Sounds like Indiana State may have a Lutz like situation. Wonder what our fans would tell theirs?
(Narrator: actually, he didn’t wonder. He knew exactly what they’d say)
Lansing’s tenure has been on a mostly downward trajectory after his first season as HC in Terre Haute. Took ISU to the Big Dance in 2011 when they won the Valley tournament, their only NCAA appearance during his decade as head honcho. Had five straight losing seasons sandwiched in between prior to the last two.
While doing research on the Indiana State program, I see that we share a rarity with the Sycamores. Both schools reached the Final Four during their initial participation in the Big Dance - the Niners in 1977 and Sycamores in 1979. Although ISU has one of the oldest collegiate programs in hoops, dating back to 1896, they didn’t participate at the D-I level until the 1970s. And the star player on those respective FF teams would end up as NBA teammates with the Celtics!
Anyway, see that Lansing served two stints as an ISU assistant prior to being elevated to head coach in 2010, so all total he’s been with the Sycamores for almost 20 years. Also read that ISU just completed a major renovation of its 10,000 seat arena.
Of course, Goodman’s report is all conjecture at this point, which is why I hesitated on posting it when I first saw it. Ditto on Forde’s piece about why Indiana should pursue Scott Drew to replace Archie Miller.
One thing seems for sure - the Coaching Carousel is definitely going to spin this year!
And the aforementioned piece by Forde about Indiana hoops:
Jay’s dad Charlie was a heck of a coach at St Louis, and we played him plenty when we were in CUSA 1.0 together. Sorry things are not working out better for Jay.