Some late night “dirt” as I watch American Idol with the DirtQueen and the Little Dirt Bags….
I have heard that Siena Heights (MI) head coach Al Sandifer has decided to resign. He took a medical leave of absence this year and handed over the reigns to assistant Bobby Plumer on an interim basis. In his four years, Sandifer has led the Saints to a 61-64 record. Sandifer served as an assistant coach for the SHU men’s basketball program for 20 seasons prior to taking on the head job. According to a source, SHU wants to have this job filled within the next 3-4 weeks. No word on when the official announcement will be made.
On Monday I blogged about the vacancy at Northern Arizona (http://hoopdirt.com/blog/b4fb6a90/northern-arizona-update/…). It looks like there is another candidate in the mix. Apparently Arizona State associate head coach Dedrique Taylor has become a legit candidate here. Taylor has been on Herb Sendak’s staff at ASU since 2006 and was an assistant at Nevada before that. Pretty interesting that two guys on the ASU staff are now rumored to be involved with this job – it will be very interesting to see how this shakes out.
UNC-Greensboro interim head coach Wes Miller is making a strong push to keep his job. He was named as the Southern Conference Coach of the Year today. Miller led the Spartans to a 10-8 record in the SoCon and captured the North Division championship, marking the first time the Spartans have won the division outright. Miller is UNCG’s first conference coach of the year in the Spartans’ 21-year DI history. Sounds like it would be pretty hard to replace him. I will have a story on Miller and the other DI interim head coaches early next week.
Earlier today, I posted the ad for the head job at DIII St. Thomas. While the posting is legit, it may just be a formality. Interim head coach Johnny Tauer took over prior to the season after Steve Fritz’ retirement and has led the Tommies to a 21-6 record and league title. I have it as even $ that the St. Thomas alum has his interim title removed sooner rather than later.
I mentioned yesterday that a DII job in Colorado is about to open. My info is good, but I am waiting for one more confirmation before I run with it. I can confirm however that it is NOT Louis Wilson at Adams State. A few people I talked to today assumed that Wilson was out at ASU because he is getting the Idaho State job. While he is definitely involved at ISU, he is still very much the boss at Adams State and is not a shoe-in at ISU. He did spend eight seasons as an assistant at Idaho State. Here’s the link to my list of candidates there: http://hoopdirt.com/blog/3dc19d1c/idaho-state-search/… . The list is from earlier this month, but from what I’ve heard, it has not changed.
