We'll start the morning with the continuation of a troubling trend in college basketball.
Namely, jettisoning a coach far before a season ends.
UNC Wilmington did the deed last night, zapping Benny Moss a day after the Seahawks turned in a horrific performance at Hofstra. Brian Mull at the Wilmington Star News has more.
The question isn't whether Moss should have been fired. He was 41-74 in more than 3 1/2 seasons. This came after the Seahawks went to the NCAA tournament in 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2006. It's a results-oriented business, and the wins weren't there.
But Moss is the latest in a string of coaches sent packing far sooner than they typically would have been in the past. Fordham and Penn forced out coaches in December, Dartmouth ousted its coach just before Ivy League play began and DePaul relieved Jerry Wainwright (coincidentally, a former UNC Wilmington coach) of his duties earlier this month.
If someone's getting fired in December, there was probably thought about making a change in the offseason. And if it's late January and a team is a discombobulated mess on the court (and the Seahawks certainly weren't a paragon of efficiency and smarts), then an in-season change isn't going to do much to save things.
Yes, all these schools get a jump start on a coaching search, and maybe they can see what an assistant can do on a trial basis. But it seems, in most cases, announcing a change and letting the coach finish out the season if he so chooses is the more appropriate response. There's value in providing the example of finishing what you start, certainly at the college level.
Moss wasn't going to make it to next season, UNC Wilmington's plummet to near the bottom of the CAA (again) assured that. The question wasn't whether a change would occur, but when it would happen. And yet again, the instant gratification of an immediate dismissal won out.
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