Boals will get to go to the final four in back to back years.  That is pretty cool for him. 

My three picks are and in this order....

Jeff Boals
Geno Ford
Gary Waters

Say what you wanna about Geno but he did have 20 win seasons at Kent.  I mean, come on, he went to Bradley and yes they had a bad year but what kind of talent did he have to work with?  But my first choice is Boals.  Waters may be too hard to get but he has had success at Cleveland State. 

My only reservation is to ask what happened with Fresno.

I hope you guys are right about Boals, but the mere fact that he's an Ohio alumn does nothing for me. I would hope that we make our search national and go for the very best candidate possible. I forget the man's name, but as another poster said in another thread, it seems to me Robert Morris' coach may make a good candidate; he sure had Groce's and Ohio's number.

Let's go for the very best candidate possible, I could care less if he's an alum or not.

I'll take it a step further and say that not only should Boals be the next coach, but that OU should be perfectly content and happy to become an extension of the Matta coaching tree. We should be a perfect destination for top assistants from schools like OSU, Xavier, and Butler to come for their first head coaching experience, make a couple of tournament runs and get bought out by some Big 10 or Big 12 school. We can dream about a lifer all we want, but the fact of the matter is that mid major lifers are lifers due to mediocrity. They're not bad enough to fire and aren't good enough to be poached by a big money program. 

This is funny...we got one Asst. from tosu and just because this next guy is an alum you are somewhat negative on him saying let's look all over the world?  Just because he is an Alum doesn't mean he cannot coach.  Besides, I thought we wanted someone from the "Matta" tree.  This guy fits both bills.  Alum who may have stick around a while and experience with "the system".

Seems a no brainer to me.  Then again, I think Reggie's comments about Dustin Ford were interersting.  And, again here is an Alum from the "Groce/Matta" tree.  So, why not?

Again, a no brainer to me to go with someone with OHIO ties AND the pedigree we all seem to want.

Which is why its sometimes good to keep that assistant. IF Boals is the next coach, I can't see why Dustin can't be kept on.

I'm not necessarily down on Boals because he's an alum, but I'm not necessarily "up" on him because he's an alum either. If he's the best possible candidate for us, let's go get him. I'm OK with that. If he's not the best possible candidate, let's look elsewhere. But the fact someone's an alum shouldn't even enter into the discussion IMHO.

Odd tweet by Jason Thompson. Apparently he used to run rivals.com and now is some sort of Illinois insider or something. Probably talking out of his ass.

 Jason Thompson ‏ @jthompson247

Appears Jerrance Howard is moving on from Illinois. Look for Staff to be John Groce, Jeff Boals, Dennis Gates and Paris Parham. #Illini

Boals interviewed at Kent and Fresno for the head job. There's no way he's moving from an Assistant's job at Ohio State to the same position at Illinois. Associate Head Coach Title or not. That's just flat out ridiculous.

I am sure he comes down periodically to visit the Buggy anyway, so I am not certain that is an indication of job hunting.  The pull of the Burrito Buggy goes far and wide!!

Picking a head coach without head coaching experience is always a crap shoot. However, Coach Boals is the best hope we have. He's been exposed to different programs and he is focused and disciplined, something Coach Billy Hahn never possessed. I believe Coach Roy Williams was hired at Kansas with no head coaching experience, much to the dismay of the Jayhawk faithful before he became an overwhelming success which continues today at North Carolina.

I wish Coach Groce the best. However, I wish he had talked this over with Coach Danny Nee (maybe he did, I have no idea.) You might recall I posted here sometime ago that Coach Nee said a few years back that the only reason he left Athens was to go to a place that he could win a national championship. He thought that could be Nebraska, and as we know it wasn't. In hindsight Coach Nee said he thinks he could have turned OU into a Mid Major power (like Butler) and still possibly achieved his national championship goal. Who knows but the state of college basketball today makes it more possible for mid majors to rise than ever before; the only drawback being retaining a cohesive coaching staff. I hope Coach Boals is hired, wins, and stays to build a national power.