It was a busy day yesterday – Texas State, Texas Pan American, and Jackson State all opened. I believe today will be fairly busy as well. Here are a few things that I’ve heard so far…
• I mentioned last week that Louisville assistant Kareem Richardson was a “hot” name at UMKC. Two other names that I’ve heard over the past few days are South Carolina associate head coach Brad Underwood and Southern Illinois associate head coach Tom Hankins. Underwood is a Kansas guy – played at Kansas State, and was an assistant there under both Bob Huggins and Frank Martin. Has also been the head coach at Dodge City CC (KS). Hankins has spent the past two seasons at SIU after spending 15 seasons on the staff at Oral Roberts.
• I’ve heard that UNC-Wilmington head coach Buzz Peterson is looking to bring Brett Blizzard onto his staff in some capacity. After firing two assistants yesterday (http://hoopdirt.com/news/5ca5ace4/hot-staff-changes-at-uncw/…), Peterson could be looking for some good local PR. Blizzard the all-time leading scorer at UNCW (graduated in 2003 with 2,144 pts.), and he has had his number retired by the school. He currently operates a private training facility in Wilmington.
• Speaking of all-time leading scorers…Texas’ all-time leading scorer Terrence Rencher has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Doug Davalos at Texas State. Rencher is currently an assistant at Sam Houston State, and has also worked at Tulsa and Texas Sate. Rencher was the 32nd overall selection in the 1995 NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets and played one season in the NBA with Miami and Phoenix.
• I have heard that Tusculum associate head coach Mike McBride is the leader for the vacant spot at Holy Cross (IN). He is an Indiana native who played at Marian (IN) and served as an assistant at Indiana University Southeast. He also spent three seasons as the head boys’ varsity coach at Eminence (IN) HS.
• Apparently Reggie Witherspoon was surprised when he got fired at Buffalo last week. He held a press conference in his home yesterday to address his firing. It’s pretty interesting – here’s a link: http://util.buffalo.com/video/?video=2236146476001…
