Déjà vu all over again

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This is what’s known in the corporate world as a public relations nightmare.

Those who have followed the… wait, shit, this isn’t Jim Larranaga again. We got rejected by another mid-major coach? Wow, talk about a bad couple of weeks for Providence hoops. Is there a panic button somewhere around here to press?

UMass head man Travis Ford (circled above) spurned the opportunity to take over Providence’s program, and it leaves PC still searching for a coach a month after Tim Welsh was canned.

We’re of two minds about this. On one hand, Ford was never among our top choices for the position (as we said a few weeks ago). We had warmed up to him in the last few days, because admittedly, there’s a lot to like about him: he’s young, he plays an exciting style of hoops, and he’s a pretty solid recruiter. But we always had concerns about the defensive shortcomings of his squads, and he was always certain to jump at the first attractive SEC job available.

With that being said, Ford turning down PC is ominous, to say the least. That’s now two very public courtships — and two very public humiliations — that Providence has been through in the last week and a half.  AD Bob Driscoll still has no head coach; what he does have is a pair of black eyes, at least in the public perception, which is all that counts in this day and age.

We know why George Mason’s Larranaga turned down the Providence job: he’s 58, he’s comfortable where he’s been for 11 years, and he’s a god on that campus after his Final Four run a couple of years ago.  With Ford, we can only speculate as to why he turned down PC, but here’s our best guess: he plain and simply feels better about his chances to land an SEC job if he just sticks it out at UMass for another year or two.  Providence would be a whole new challenge, and he’s not willing to put his reputation on the line in the nation’s deepest conference because it could damage his chances to return to ol’ Dixie.

All that being said… really? We just got rejected by a dude who starred in The Sixth Man?  A movie that gets a whopping 5.1 out of 10 on IMDB?  (For a frame of reference: the Paris Hilton, ummm, thriller House of Wax scored a 5.4).  I’m sure there’s a great joke in here somewhere, but quite frankly, I’m just too disappointed to think of it.

So what’s next for Providence?

Well, only Oklahoma State and Stanford remain available as far as BCS jobs go, and neither figures to be competing with PC for a head coach given factors both geographical and monetary (hello, T. Boone).  We have a nagging fear that Tim O’Shea and the two Frans (Fraschilla and McCaffrey) are PC’s Plan C candidates, and that’s fairly cataclysmic news for Friar fans.  Once again, we hope Driscoll will be beating down the doors at Wright State (Brad Brownell), Drake (Keno Davis), Dayton (Brian Gregory), and Tulsa (Doug Wojcik).  Hell, we’d certainly sign off on Memphis assistant Derek Kellogg at this point.

Unfortunately, the sad fact is that with both Larranaga and Ford turning PC down, there’s an increasing perception that there’s something wrong with the job.  Right or wrong, there’s a stigma attached to PC within the coaching community, and it could make the remainder of this search an ugly one for Bob Driscoll.

Of course, there’s a dark horse candidate the Friars could pursue.  Coach Pederson did a great job coaching Washington to the National Championship a few years back, even after losing his star player to a tragic accident midway through the season.  He even looks a little like former PC assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy (see?), so really, what could go wrong?

Alright, I’m going to crawl into the fetal position and cry myself to sleep now.

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Filed under Providence, Providence Basketball

Tags: Bob Driscoll, Brad Brownell, Brian Gregory, Derek Kellogg, Doug Wojcik, Fran Fraschilla, Fran McCaffrey, Jim Larranaga, Keno Davis, PC Coaching Search, Tim O'Shea, Travis Ford