Let me preface this post by saying I absolutely do not believe URI will fire Jim Baron once they are bounced in the 2nd round of the NIT. They simply do not have the balls or the money to blow paying off the rest of his salary. He renegotiated his contract during his first couple seasons in Kingston to a 10 year, 4.5 million dollar deal which does not expire for another three of seasons (after the 2012-2013 season). If he were to be relieved at the end of the current season, URI would be stuck paying him some 1.3 million.
Here’s the problem – the state of Rhode Island is broke. They are too broke to pay someone who’s no longer employed and they are too broke to hire anybody decent at today’s wages. Most D1 coaches are taking home at least $750k/year – far more than Baron is making in his current deal. Add in the money the school and the state would still owe Baron and we are talking about paying over $1 million per year for a basketball coach. Not going to happen in Rhody. In Indiana? Yes. North Carolina? Absolutely. Anywhere in the Northeast? Nope.
Let’s say Baron resigns or by some act of God, Rhode Island actually holds a state employee accountable for sub par performance. Who’s next?
One astute commenter pointed out Ed Cooley, current men’s coach at Fairfield. He’s done a solid job down there by most accounts and he’s got a solid resume as an assistant working for many years under Al Skinner at BC. His current salary is less than Baron at around $250k/year and he’s a Rhode Island native so the hometown discount could come in to play. The biggest drawback – he was also an assistant coach under Jim Harrick at URI and we all know how hard the school has tired to distance itself from that era.
At the end of the day, this is the type of guy Rhody will have to settle for. Somebody relatively unknown that would work for cheap. Our best hope is that they find a diamond in the rough, like Memphis did with Josh Pastner, who can come in and start recruiting right away. There are plenty out there, the trouble is identifying them.
The other option is to take a scandal tarnished coach desperate for a shot to reclaim his reputation. The first name that comes to mind there is Quin Snyder, former head coach at Missouri where he led them to their highest ranking ever and an elite 8 berth in the NCAA tournament. He was dismissed after 3 scandalous seasons with accusations of paying players and forging academic transcripts. He’s currently coaching in the NBA D League where he’s allegedly happy but I’m sure he’d like another crack at the college game.
Outside of that it is anybody’s guess. URI is in a real bind here with no money, a shitty recruiting class (especially with Billy on the way to UVA) and not much to build on. In all likelihood, Jim Baron will finish out his contract before slipping off into the night and the URI basketball program will be set back 15 years. It’s unfortunate but also the standard for state schools in professional sports markets.
Just for kicks, top 5 candidates for the URI job –
Quin Snyder
Tommy Amaker
Chris Collins
Steve Wojciechowski
Nate James
In that order.
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