Daily Dirt – 3/18/13

The start of what looks to be another busy week. Here’s what I’ve got so far…

• Duke associate head coach Chris Collins is the “hot” name right now at Northwestern. The former Duke standout has been on Coach K’s staff since 2000. He is a Northbrook, IL native and the son of 76ers coach Doug Collins. While he is the name that most are talking about, he is far from a lock here. NU AD Jim Phillips will take his time here and conduct a very thorough search.

• I blogged this weekend that Texas Tech assistants Jeremy Cox and Bubba Jennings were fired. It turns out that director of basketball operations Craig Wells, assistant director of operations Jim Shaw, director of video production Josh Mills and assistant director of video production Derrick Jasper have also been released. They will all be paid through the month of May.

• Multiple sources have told me that St. Mary’s assistant Rick Croy is involved at San Jose State. He is a San Francisco native who has been on Randy Bennett’s staff at SMC for the past two seasons. Before that, he was the head coach at Citrus College (CA) where he led his squad to a 130-35 overall record.

• A few people have mentioned former Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody’s name at Marist. He is a NJ native who played at Union (NY) – less than 100 miles from Marist. I’m not sure if this is the spot for him, but he will land somewhere soon. I should have a better Marist list later this week.

• I have heard that former Alabama head coach David Hobbs will be involved with the search at Ball State. He also spent seven seasons as an assistant at Kentucky before joining the NBA ranks as a scout.

• VMI assistant Jason Allison’s name has been mentioned surrounding the vacant job at Campbell. He definitely knows the league – he has been as assistant at VMI for the past eight seasons, and played in the Big South at Liberty.