Wonder if South Carolina will go after Capel this time
Published: 3/14/2012 7:41 AM
Last Modified: 3/14/2012 7:41 AM
South Carolina's basketball job came open Tuesday. Everyone immediately hired Wichita State's Gregg Marshall. He coached South Carolina school Winthrop for nine years before moving to WSU, and spent eight years on John Kresse's staff at College of Charleston. He's a South Carolina guy, basically.
Me, I thought of Jeff Capel before Marshall. I thought of 2008, the year the Gamecocks replaced Dave Odom with Darrin Horn, the guy who was canned Tuesday.
Before settling for Horn, everyone assumed they'd pry Capel from Oklahoma. I mean, everyone.
I went to Birmingham to cover the Sooners in the NCAA regional. At least, that's what I thought I was doing. I arrived to discover I was covering South Carolina's coach search. Seriously.
The State newspaper sent its Gamecocks beat writer to Birmingham. That's how sure they were that Capel was the guy. CBSSports.com columnist Gary Parrish was in Birmingham. Here's what he wrote:
"There isn't a person in college basketball I know who believes Capel won't be the next head coach of the Gamecocks. An offer is expected to be made within days (if not hours) of Oklahoma's season ending, and the smart money has Capel accepting the position primarily because it would get him closer to his North Carolina roots."
A Big 12 Conference guy thought it was a done deal. So did my Tulsa media who were there. Capel's players and staff members couldn't say (never a good sign). The only one who seemed incredulous at the notion was OU AD Joe Castiglione. He was about to give Capel a fat raise – remember, this was when Capel's star was just starting to rise – and he was perturbed that Capel (i.e. Capel's agent) was using South Carolina's interest to up the ante.
He was perturbed that anyone thought South Carolina was actually a better job than OU. (He was right about to be p*ssed about that. It's a terrible job. I discovered that when researching why Capel might want to bolt. It's still terrible. Marshall might have a better one in Wichita. Think about that for a sec.)
Anyway, Capel did the smart thing and hitched his wagon to Blake Griffin another year. His agent made him a millionaire. Joe C kept one of college basketball's hot young coaches. Everybody won.
Fast forward four years, to the point of this blog finally. My can things change.
In 2008, South Carolina AD Eric Hyman would have been very wise to hire Capel. Now, Hyman would taking a whale of a risk, given the Sooners' NCAA-infested crash-landing under Capel's watch.
In 2008, it made extremely little sense for Capel to be interested in the Gamecocks, closer to home or not. Now, he might pay his way to Columbia just to interview.
In 2008, Castiglione looked like the cool-under-fire CEO for laughing at everyone else's panic and taking care of his young, successful coach. Now, he's the AD who fired Capel two years after awarding him a new $13 million-plus contract.
How's this going to play out from here? My best guesses:
Castiglione's safer post-Capel hire also proves to be sounder. Lon Kruger wins, eventually, and keeps OU out of the NCAA's crosshairs.
Hyman offers Marshall the moon, but Marshall pulls an upset by staying in Wichita after the Shockers' Sweet 16 NCAA tournament run. The Gamecocks hire Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua instead.
Capel spends one more season on Coach K's bench at Duke, then takes a job that doesn't appear as good as South Carolina, but turns out much better.
OR
Capel leaves the Blue Devils this offseason for an NBA job. That's where he always wanted to wind up working, at least when he was at OU.
-- Guerin Emig
Written by
Guerin Emig
Sports Writer
