I think we should watch the conference tournaments and the tournament and identify some great candidates.
I'd suggest that that was the reason we're in the position we are today. We hired Saul largely because he was the hot commodity after a single NCAA win. That's how you make mistakes, hiring someone based on a hot week or two in March, rather than based on the total body of work. What happened this week and next should have little bearing on who we hire. That decision should be made based on what they've accomplished up until now
+1.
I see your point, I would like us to look for a young assistant that can recruit, a Groce type. Groce recruited mike Conley and Greg oden, and we interviewed him after the tournament and his first recruiting class was amazing.
I agree completely (although Groce was hired in June, not March). I've argued elsewhere that Schaus's preoccupation with hiring someone with prior head coaching experience is a major problem. The pool of guys who (i) have a successful track record as a head coach, (ii) have recruiting ties to our region, (iii) are within our budget, and (iv) would be interested in coming here is extremely narrow.
Teams at our level do not need to artificially limit the pool of potential candidates to focus only on current head coaches. It's a guaranteed recipe to get a mediocre candidate who won't stay long or has little ambition (as the last two hires have ultimately proven).
The number of examples of mid-majors who have successfully established a winning tradition in recent years after poaching someone else's head coach is extremely small (probably just Wichita). By contrast, almost every dominant mid-majors program has consistently hired top assistants, often promoting from within (Butler, Xavier, Buffalo).
We need to identify a top assistant coach with excellent recruiting skills and a Midwestern base (e.g., Tom Ostrom).