Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Mike Anderson

What do we make of this Mike Anderson situation?

It became official tonight that Anderson, coach at the University of Missouri, was returning to Arkansas, the school where he served as assistant coach under successful mentor Nolan Richardson.

Anderson was hired at Missouri in 2006 after a successful stint at University of Alabama-Birmingham. At Mizzou, Anderson took over a program which has been embarrassed by the scandal left by Quin Snyder. In his five years in Columbia, Anderson led MU to an Elite Eight and won a Big 12 postseason conference championship. Yet Anderson, over the past two seasons, has had back-to-back 23-11 records and a fifth and sixth place finish in the conference.

Candidly, it's surprising to me that Arkansas is paying Anderson $2.2 million per year. That pay scale is in the Roy Williams-Mike Krzyzewski range and places Anderson in the top ten salaries of NCAA hoops coaches. Of the other coaches receiving this kind of compensation, all have taken a team to a Final Four and most have won a national championship. Not to demean Anderson's credentials, but there were other coaches out there who may have made the move for this compensation and with a better resume.

Anderson's flirtation with Arkansas came after public pronouncements that he was happy at Missouri. There were discussions going on with Mike Alden, MU's Athletics Director, on a contract extension and pay raise--reportedly to $2 million per year--but Anderson ultimately chose the pull of more dough in Fayetteville coupled with taking over the program once led by Richardson. He may have also realized that fan sentiment in Missouri was beginning to sour and chose to make the move now versus facing the pressure of increased expectations.

I'm sure Anderson will be successful in Arkansas but it remains to be seen how well he'll compete with Kentucky and Florida in the SEC, not to mention Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi State. He leaves behind a program in a better place yet still seeking the consistent competitiveness in the conference which was a staple of Norm Stewart's tenure.

Who will the Tigers hire? No names have been bounced around, yet, other than Cuonzo Martin from Missouri State. If Alden's willing to offer up $2 million per year, then the Tigers have an attractive position for the short list of good coaches making their marks at mid-majors, or an assistant at a marquee program. This is a very important decision for the MU A.D.--he's got to find someone who can compete with a Kansas State program which has improved under Frank Martin; Texas A&M; Iowa State, and their batch of transfers coming to play for Fred Hoiberg; Texas and the talent they seems to attract each year and; of course, Kansas. Anderson won one game against Bill Self in his tenure at MU--I'm sure the Tiger faithful are hopeful that the new hire can strike a bit more fear into their rival to the west.

MU is an open job which is now competing with Tennessee, Oklahoma and Georgia Tech--all high profile head coaching positions. And, once again, for the third time in 11 years, we'll get to watch as MU seeks a new coach to fill a seat which previously had been held by the same guy for 37 straight seasons.

1 comment:

  1. Matt Painter is getting a lot of love on the rumor mill, but I don't see how he would ever leave Purdue. Still, that would be one heck of a hire.

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