Great tournament games this weekend! Indy should be nuts!! Here are a few things that I’ve heard…
• The “hot” name right now at Northern Kentucky is Florida Southern head coach Linc Darner. His squad just won the NCAA DII National Championship and finished 36-1. Darner has won 292 games in his 9 seasons at FSC. Darner also went 74-45 in his four seasons as the head coach at St. Joseph’s (IN). He played for Gene Keady at Purdue University, where the Boilermakers went 82-42 in his career (1990-94) and earned three NCAA Tournament bids.
• There have been some names popping up at Wisconsin-Green Bay following Brian Wardle’s departure to Bradley. Most people that I’ve talked to believe that current UWGB associate head coach Brian Barone is the leader here. He has been at has been at Green Bay since 2010, and was also an assistant at Illinois State. His father Tony is the former head coach at Creighton, Texas A&M and the Memphis Grizzlies. Other names that have surfaced here are, Indiana assistant Tim Buckley, Virginia assistant Ron Sanchez, and Nebraska assistant Chris Harriman. More as this one progresses.
• Very early in the search at Eastern Kentucky, but a name that has been making the rounds is current Maryland-Eastern Shore head coach Bobby Collins. He is a 1991 EKU grad who was inducted into the Hall-of-Fame there. This season was his first at UMES – he guided his squad to an 18-15 record, and a spot in the Collegeinsider.com tournament. He was selected as the MEAC Coach of the Year, and has been nominated for the Hugh Durham Award. Collins has also been the head coach at Hampton (2002-2006) and Winston-Salem 2006-2014).
