https://twitter.com/highmajorscoop

That's what you get when you make Meta World Peace your unnamed source.

The best thing about the Marshall job and I'm being honest is the fact they are in Conference USA. A conference with a decent national reputation in basketball. Marshall itself is a terrible place to go to school.

To be fair almost every story I read a just a few weeks ago had D"Antoni being fired at LA.  It was a reasonable gamble for Marshall to wait.  It didn't work out, and they are in a world of trouble.  I guess it just proves that the sports pundits of the NBA don't always know what they are talking about.  Makes them very similar to BA posters and ESPN commentators. 

BREAKING: Marshall coaching search now being written as major plotline in next Cannonball Run movie. Jason Corriher to dress as a nun driving a kelly green Ferrari.

Rumor no longer.
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/breaking/x51940067/MU-coaching-search-completed

Sweet fancy Moses. According to Chuck Landon this is how Dan D'Antoni became the head coach at Marshall-

4/22 Mike D'Antoni is announced as no longer being a candidate for the job.

4/23 EKU head coach Jeff Neubauer is offered the position via telephone, he accepts. As he is driving from Kentucky to Huntington Marshall calls him back to tell him he doesn't have the job. A prominent booster got in the ear of Marshall's president and convinced him to hire Dan D'Antoni instead. Neubauer turns around and starts heading home.
- Dan D is then interviewed on the phone but is NOT offered the job.
- THEN Marshall starts talking to SFA head coach Brad Underwood (for no logical reason) who had interviewed the week before but left Huntington not wanting the job. Marshall offers him the job (instead of D'Antoni!) and Underwood REJECTS the offer. He used Marshall to drive up his price with SoMiss and Marshall didn't see it coming.
- So now Marshall calls NEUBAUER back again and offers him the job AGAIN (still no D'Antoni). Neubauer rightfully tells Marshall to go pound sand.

4/24 With no more viable candidates left 41 days into the search Marshall calls D D'Antoni and offers the job, he accepts.


from Jeff Goodman of ESPN- I got a text from the NBA side predicting Marshall’s hire “will be the worst thing you’ve ever witnessed.” Conference USA coaches are texting me at a furious rate downright giddy by the fact that Marshall hired Dan D'Antoni.


This should be very entertaining.

It's not unlike the Knicks going after Steve Kerr. He has never coached a day in his life. In this case the guy has never had to recruit and go through that process. There are plenty of qualified people who could coach Marshall. The administration is afraid to go against the boosters who want a sexy hire.

I'm going to go on record as saying that Dan will be a better coach than you guys and gals seem to think. I think he'll be a real great motivator.  He'll get more out of his charges than what their raw talent might indicate likely.  They'll play as a team.  Now, I thought Cleve Bryant was going to be a great head football coach, too.  So, I'm not infallible in these kinds of predictions! 

He might be but this is just such an odd hire.  Would you be excited about a 66 year old coach with no college coaching experience (one year as a college assistant 43 years ago doesn't count in my book) and no head coaching experience higher than high school?   I admit I don't know a damn thing about his coaching ability but if we had hired one of our ex-players with this resume I'd be pissed.

You may be right, but I still have a difficult time referring to Marshall as a "football school." When I and Dan were there it was a "basketball school" and he and his brother -- along with Russell Lee and a few others -- were big reasons for that. This may be more of a "heart response" than a "brain response" but I think Dan will be able to bring back some of that old excitement from what I remember of his personality. He obviously is pretty good with Xs and Os or he wouldn't be a successful NBA assistant, even working for his brother. It'll be interesting to see how recruits will react to a man with a good NBA pedigree who, as you rightly point out, hasn't had much college recruiting experience in ages. I'm just betting he'll make the transition better than most expect. From what I remember, and it's been a long time, Dan's court antics would not be far removed from the ones of a certain coach who ran out and kissed the floor to mark the spot where his player hit a key three-pointer. I think Ohio-Marshall basketball games just got a lot more interesting. Of course, I root for Ohio in those games!

I'm not even sure you would describe him as a successful NBA assistant. Again, he might be a great coach but up to this point he is a successful high school coach who then was hired by his brother.  I just don't see a recruit saying "Ooh, Marshall has an NBA coach."    And it's been 7 years since he was part of a team that won a playoff game (they won one game that year).   I only marginally understood the pursuit of Mike but really don't understand the hiring of Dan.