We have reached the end of another college basketball season – and once again the University of Massachusetts is looking for a new men's basketball coach.
I know a lot of people are pretty ripped at the news that Travis Ford has chosen to leave Amherst behind to become the new head basketball coach at Oklahoma State. I was too, at least at first, mainly because I really feel it is a bush league move to bag out on a contract, even if it is a good career move.
Not that it should have been altogether surprising, mind you. It was pretty obvious that Ford wasn't going to be around here forever. He'd made no secret of his desire to coach at a bigger program in a southern venue, and if somebody offered all that and nearly $2 million a year, who in their right mind wouldn't take it?
The problem I have with that, however, is that the guy not only had a contract, he all but promised one week earlier that he'd be staying at UMass for the foreseeable future. I know he's not the first coach to say one thing and do another, but don't insult my intelligence. Then again, his sniffing around for jobs at LSU and Providence should have been a red flag to all Minutemen faithful that Ford had one foot out the door. It was just a matter of the right offer coming along.
Ford's departure has created some unanswered questions. One of the biggies is whether he has the recruiting chops to succeed in a top-tier, Division One program. Despite pulling together a pretty decent UMass squad composed mostly of transfer students and holdovers from the Steve Lappas era, Ford really didn't make a huge recruiting splash during his time here. Some could argue that the program's somewhat waning national reputation was a factor, but the truth is, when it comes to out-dueling other programs to bring in top talent, Ford is a bit of a wild card – but not enough of one to keep Oklahoma State from rolling the dice, at least for the next few years.
Then there's the matter of where the UMass program goes from here. A lot of people have been talking up former Minuteman point guard Derek Kellogg to succeed Ford. I'm not sure how much of that is talk and how much of it is real, but if Kellogg is interested, it may be an option UMass Director of Athletics John McCutcheon should consider. This is a program full of young guys who play a solid, up-tempo game, with a recruiting class that was expecting to come here and play for a young, high-energy coach who understands today's player. From everything I've read and heard, Kellogg fits that bill nicely.
Another thing working in his favor is that Kellogg is a name in these parts. Lappas had a national reputation before he came here and so did Ford to some degree, but Kellogg has a special cachet because of his connection to the John Calipari era. I certainly don't think it will hurt ticket sales to have a guy on the bench who was one of building blocks of what many consider to be the last truly great era of Minuteman basketball.
The loss of Ford may sting for a while, but his departure doesn't change the fact that he left behind a pretty good basketball team that, let's not forget, beat the defending national champions to get to the NIT finals this year. There's a lively nucleus of talent coming back, and now all they have to do is find the right guy to get the program to the next level.
Whoever that person is, when it comes time to sign a contract, it might be a good idea for the UMass powers-that-be to think about mixing in a penalty clause for early departure – lest they once again wind up serving as a nothing more than a training ground for another up-and-coming coach more interested in building a resume than a winning program.
