CINCINNATI — Xavier University is left looking again after Sean Miller took the bag from the team he just vanquished in the First Four and will become the next head coach of Texas.
Miller left Sunday for Texas after three seasons in his second run on Victory Parkway.
That move should surprise no one in this age of NIL.
Money dictates everything. The schools with the deeper pockets, richer alumni and better facilities are always going to be able to poach from smaller schools.
Xavier doesn’t have the resources that a school like Texas has. The question becomes does a program like Xavier even want to compete in today’s Division I landscape, and at what price?
If you’re a smaller, Division I school that doesn’t have football, your economics and scale are simply different. That’s not to say it can’t be done. But it takes resources – lots of resources.
Villanova, a school right on the same scale as Xavier, is reportedly in the running for UCLA’s Mick Cronin, who has grown tired of the long road trips on cheap charter flights, mandated by the new bi-coastal Big Ten Conference.
Villanova reportedly not only has the money to buy out Cronin, if they the two sides agree, they have the NIL money from deep-pocketed East Coast alumni desperate to stay relevant in the basketball lifeblood that has allowed them to overhaul and remake the Main Line campus in Philadelphia in the last 15 years.
Xavier will likely have their coach within days and the list of candidates is led by a coach who could take a page right out of Sean Miller’s playbook. As a matter of fact, history could be repeating itself.
Chris Mack, a Cincinnati native, took over Xavier after Miller left for Arizona in 2009. He coached the Musketeers for nine seasons before leaving in 2018 for Louisville. Jeremy Rauch of FOX 19 reported Sunday night that the interest would be “mutual” for a Mack return. He returned to college coaching last year, taking over at Charleston after a two-year hiatus.
While money certainly matters, so does timing. The transfer portal in college basketball opens today, March 24. These schools have to act with lightning quickness to get their man in place so that they can approach players in the portal with a sense that they have all their ducks in a row.
Other possibilities include:
An outside shot given the aforementioned resources he has at Louisville of the ACC vs. Xavier. But Kelsey is another Cincinnati native who played at Xavier after transferring from the University of Wyoming. Ironically, Kelsey took over Louisville after coaching at Charleston, where Mack succeeded him last year.
Coached at Xavier with Mack for three years. Huge success in recruiting. Currently on Dan Hurley staff at UConn, where he played a key role in recruiting for the back-to-back national champs. And yes, Bill Murray’s son.
A rising star in the coaching ranks, already has 13 years experience as a head coach, one at Florida International, eight at Minnesota and the last four at New Mexico, where he came close to knocking off Michigan State on Sunday night. Son of St. John’s legendary coach Rick Pitino.
