YellowFin said:
Bill Evans made it to the NCAA's once in 15 years. Seems like a perfect fit for ISU, right? Match made in heaven.
Well, I could say something sarcastic like, "and that's one more time than ISU has made the NCAA tournament in the last 25 years," but I won't. If Bill Evans is the guy -- and that's still an "if," -- there are a lot of things the knee-jerk crowd needs to consider before they start criticizing the selection. First and foremost is the APR situation (in both football and basketball) that has led ISU to impose tougher entrance requirements on recruits. That means that whoever gets hired is going to be expected to recruit mostly freshmen or "special case" JC kids, and it will take time and patience for the program to mature. Evans is a guy with experience recruiting for Big Sky-caliber schools (he reportedly was involved in recruiting Will Cherry to Montana, for example), and I would assume he has really good contacts with high school coaches throughout the Northwest.
The second thing to keep in mind is that Jeff and his search committee have consistently emphasized the need for the new coach to recruit Idaho and the surrounding area (like Utah), first and foremost. Again, Evans brings a history of recruiting this area. (His NCAA tournament team, by the way, included Justin Sant from Bancroft, Idaho). His Southern Utah teams were always very successful against ISU, and they usually included a lot of returned missionaries, JC kids from the SWAC who went JC not because of grades but because they needed development as players or they were going on missions after a year and didn't want to sit out at a four-year school.
Evans also has a reputation for being an outstanding defensive coach, one that was certainly embellished by the way the Griz completely shut down Weber in Missoula last week.
So
if -- again that word, Bill is the guy, I think he brings some unique qualifications to the table. I hope Bengal fans have some patience with whoever is hired. This is going to be a rebuilding job, especially with Grabau, Moreira and McGowen leaving and the tougher academic standards for recruits in place.
Finally, Deane is a very good guy, I wish him nothing but the best in the future, and who knows, maybe whoever gets hired will offer him a job as an assistant? When I interviewed him when he first got the interim job, he said he was open to staying on as an assistant. That may have changed with time, but we'll see. He already has established relationships with a number of potential recruits that may be valuable to whoever gets the job.
