If Prosser skips, Cincy has other options
What if Skip Prosser isn't the next basketball coach at Cincinnati? Did you ever think about that?
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| Wake Forest's Skip Prosser is highly regarded in the Queen City. (Getty Images) |
Prosser has rebuilt Wake Forest into one of the premier programs in the ACC. Cincinnati, by firing Bob Huggins in August and gutting its 2006 recruiting class, could sink toward the bottom of the Big East after losing five seniors from its current team.
All the same, Cincinnati has to ask Prosser -- and coaches around the country expect Prosser will say yes. But if he says no, we have three scenarios for the Bearcats to consider.
One you won't see is the permanent promotion of interim coach Andy Kennedy. Kennedy is proving he can handle the coaching aspects of the job, and he and assistant Frank Martin helped put this team together. But their connection to Huggins won't help with Zimpher. Hence, the following three post-Prosser scenarios:
The Dream Hire
You're not going to believe this name, but here it comes:
Villanova's Jay Wright.
Sources in the coaching community insist Wright has a serious interest in the Cincinnati job. Why on earth? That was our first question, too. And then we heard the rationale:
- Unless Wright plans to be at Villanova for the rest of his career -- and he doesn't -- this April is the time to jump. The Wildcats' best two players (guards Randy Foye and Allan Ray) and best big man (Jason Fraser) are seniors. Curtis Sumpter is another senior, though his knee injury makes him a redshirt candidate. Even with Sumpter back next season, Villanova wouldn't be the Final Four candidate it is now.
- Cincinnati offers a better basketball arena, and a better stage. Philadelphia is a much larger market, of course, but college basketball isn't a daily front-page story in Philly like it is in Cincinnati, where the Bearcats are covered like an NBA team.
- At 16 teams, exactly half of them playing Division I-A football, the Big East is due for a split -- and unlike Cincinnati, the basketball-playing schools would face an unclear future. Plus, sources say Wright is starting to chafe against the restraints of coaching at a small, Catholic school. The admissions department, the budget, all of it is dwarfed by what would await at Cincinnati.
Prosser should be Cincinnati's first choice. But if he says no, and Wright is willing to say yes? The search is over.
