The college basketball coaching carousel is moving at a steady pace as coaches change addresses on what seems like a daily basis.
So far, the best move this spring has been the hiring of Mike Davis by UAB. Davis is the perfect fit for a program that is once again a factor on the national scene, thanks to former head coach Mike Anderson, who left Birmingham to come to the University of Missouri.
Davis is a native of Alabama, a proven winner as a head coach and an excellent recruiter with extensive ties in the Southern region. Davis was greeted at his press conference in Birmingham by a rousing standing ovation. That had to be music to Davis’ ears after spending the past six years in Bloomington, Ind. as the stepchild of the Hoosier State.
As the man who replaced Bob Knight (the Czar of Indiana Basketball), Davis never had a chance in Indiana. He was an unwanted man from the moment he took over as head coach at Indiana and those cold feelings eventually took their toll on Davis and drove him out of Bloomington for good.
For Davis’ good.
He needed to leave Bloomington and be free of an ungrateful legion of fans who did not realize that they had a good thing going. They just wanted to live in the past, either in their blind loyalty for Knight or their ridiculous fawning over former Hoosier Steve Alford, the head coach at Iowa.
In six years at Indiana, Davis proved that he could win at the major college level and under the toughest of circumstances. Davis won 60 percent of his games while playing one of the nation’s toughest schedules on an annual basis. He led the Hoosiers to four NCAA Tournament berths and one magical run to the NCAA National Championship game in 2002.
In 2006, Davis led the Hoosiers to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, despite playing the season without his top big man, 6’9” 240-pound D.J. White, who was the Big Ten Conference Freshman of the Year in 2005. With a healthy White playing alongside Marco Killingsworth in the paint, the Hoosiers would have contended for another Final Four berth this season.
Meanwhile, while Davis was advancing in the NCAA Tournament, Alford’s Hawkeyes were blowing a 17-point lead and losing their first-round game to unheralded Northwestern State on the Southland Conference. The love affair with Alford and Indiana seemed to end there for good, as he wasn’t even considered for the IU job.
Meanwhile in Lubbock, Knight was more successful with his reality show on ESPN than he was with his 2006 Red Raiders, who finished with a losing record. How’s that for poetic justice.
Now, Davis gets a much-deserved second chance at a place where he can really shine. He received some good news this week when IU starting guard Robert Vaden decided to transfer and follow Davis to UAB. White, an Alabama native, is still undecided about his future plans at IU. If he decides to join Vaden and Davis in UAB, the Blazers will have a big leg up on keeping its national stature in 2008.
Kelvin Sampson, formerly of Oklahoma, is now the head Hoosier and another young, black coach, Jeff Capel, has replaced him at the helm of the Sooners. Capel, 31, comes to Norman from Virginia Commonwealth, where he led the Rams to the NCAA Tournament in 2004.