Not A Chance

I know this story is now two days old. but I must comment on it. Sean Sutton "resigned" as coach of the Oklahoma State Basketball team. Don't be fooled, he was fired. We've been hearing since late January that Sutton would be on his way out and Billionaire Booster Boone Pickens would throw $4-5 million at Bill Self to get him to come home and save his alma mater.

If you think that's happening, you are on crack. First off, you don't go from a Mount Rushmore program to a second tier one, regardless of whether or not it is your alma mater. It's not like Self is going to go into the poor house if he passes on the Oklahoma State job either. You can bet Kansas A.D. Lew Perkins will be sweetning Self's current deal to keep him happy and in Lawrence, especially since he has made it to the Final Four this season.

“Bill and I have been talking about a lot of things including his future. We’ve been doing that for quite a while,” Perkins said. “It’s premature to talk about it publicly. We’ll definitely talk about adding resources for him."

“We talk about a lot of scenarios. The bottom line is we have a good relationship,” Self said of him and Perkins. “We’ve said all along when the season is over we’ll evaluate what’s going on. I don’t anticipate just because this happens at this time that we change our game plan. Our game plan is that when the season is over, Lew and I get together and make sure this is a great fit for everybody. I certainly anticipate that being the case.”

Look at the pressure Self would be under if indeed he did take that gig. People would call him nuts for leaving a place like Kansas for a much lesser job. The scrutiny and pressure for him to bring a winner back to his alma mater would be greater than what he is going through at KU. What if he failed to land the top talent there? It's an absolute no-brainer to stay.

Meanwhile in other coaching news, MTAC is a big fan of the Tom Crean hire at Indiana. Give them credit - they hit a jackpot by being able to score one of the most well-respected young coaches in the game. In Crean, they are getting a master motivator and recruiter and a guy who is squeeky clean and highly regarded by his peers. How they landed him in the face of NCAA sanctions, losing pretty much their entire starting lineup as well as recruits who have asked out of their letters of intent, is a testament to the Indiana name.