The Godfather: Why PC Is Perfect For Anthony Grant

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See also, “The Godfather: Why Anthony Grant is Perfect for PC”

So Anthony Grant may be perfect for PC, but since it takes two to tango, Bob Driscoll would have to convince Grant that PC is the right fit for him. So, Bob, get out your plaid jacket, slick back your hair, and make liked a used car salesman while you give the following sales pitch…

1. Out of all the jobs available right now, Providence is the one that best fits Grant’s career aspirations.

Look, I’m a realist. I understand that LSU and South Carolina are big state universities with athletic funding that we can only dream of. But hear me out on this one for a minute.

We all know that Grant was days away from being the coach at Florida last year, and then Billy D pulled his last-minute about face. We’ve heard whispers that Grant would now prefer a Big East or ACC job (and there’s only one available); perhaps it’s because he doesn’t want to coach against his mentor. This makes a certain amount of sense: surely Grant harbors ambitions of succeeding Donovan some day, and in a lot of ways, it would be easier to move to Florida from PC than from an SEC rival.

[Quick aside: for those of you saying, "But Donovan would never leave Florida, especially not after he jilted the Magic to return last year," let me just point out that Billy the Kid hasn't exactly fallen in love with this crop of Gators. Who's to say if the NBA came knocking again in five years, he wouldn't listen?]

And on a much more basic level… would you really want to go to a school that doesn’t seem to have you on its list (South Carolina)? Or a school with an Athletic Department in disarray (LSU)? There’s always the chance that he could stay at VCU (who is apparently willing to pony up to keep him), but he doesn’t have a lot left to prove there. So if he wants to move to a major conference team on the East Coast — and we’re fairly confident he won’t end up at a left coast school such as Cal — then Providence might just make the most sense.

2. The personnel situation at Providence right now is ideal for a first year coach like Grant.

This is something we touched on in a post after the UConn game on March 6. This is a team with definite talent; it gets everybody important back from last year’s squad; and it returns its point guard (Sharaud Curry), who missed all of last year with a foot injury. The missing ingredient is any semblance of a commitment to defense, and that just so happens to be Grant’s forte. If he can get these Friars to play defense, then this is a potential NCAA Tournament team next year.

After that, he’ll have no less than five scholarships to bring in his own recruits and start remaking the program to fit his system. A lot of available jobs require a coach to resurrect a train wreck of a roster; at PC, Grant would inherit a talented squad, and after potentially making a run in the Tourney his first year, he’d then have a clean slate. The man that helped recruit Al Horford, Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, David Lee, etc. to Gainesville shouldn’t have too much trouble making a splash with that quintet of schollies.

3. The powers that be at PC will give Grant the resources and the time to succeed.

The facilities are in the best shape they’ve ever been: the school just opened a state-of-the-art $12 million fitness center on campus, and the 13,000-seat downtown arena is almost through with its $62 million renovation.

But even more important than that: in the “What have you done for me lately?” world of college basketball, Providence is the rare big conference school that will be patient with its coach. We don’t mean to pile on Tim Welsh, but the PC Athletic Department gave him an entire decade to sort things out — even, for the last couple of years at least, in the face of overwhelming evidence that the situation was irreparable. While LSU just canned John Brady two years after making the Final Four, Bob Driscoll & Co. gave Welsh every opportunity to right the ship.

That’s some serious job security. Obviously, no coach comes into a job thinking he’s going to struggle, but it’s nice to know that an administration will stick by you if there’s a rough patch instead of just cutting you loose (as LSU did).

So… could this really happen?

If Anthony Grant is unveiled as PC’s next head coach, it will certainly be one of the bigger upsets in recent years. But we don’t think it’s completely out of the question. In addition to making one hell of a sales pitch, Driscoll would also need to enlist the help of Donovan. We were there when Billy the Kid made his triumphant return to Providence in December 2005, and he spoke glowingly of his time at PC, the manner in which he was welcomed back — and the state of the basketball program, including the talented freshmen (Curry, Geoff McDermott, Weyinmi Efejuku, etc.) who he felt would be the next group to mark their own names in the storied history of Friars March runs.

We have to think that Grant would take Donovan’s advice to heart, so if Billy D recommends Providence as a great next step for Grant, it would certainly help facilitate such a move.

As things stand now, it’s awfully quiet on the coaching search front. Driscoll is in Madison, Wisconsin for the start of the NCAA Ice Hockey Tournament, and it seems likely that the interviewing process will begin in earnest when he returns. But with no real word coming out, PC fans can always hold out hope that Driscoll has an ace up his sleeve, as ProJo beat writer Kevin McNamara alluded to at the close of his Friday article.

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Filed under Providence, Providence Basketball

Tags: Anthony Grant, Billy Donovan, Bob Driscoll, Geoff McDermott, John Brady, PC Coaching Search, Sharaud Curry, Tim Welsh, VCU, Weyinmi Efejuku