The Charlotte 49ers have parted ways with Coach Alan Major after five seasons. Those five seasons saw Charlotte not make the NCAA Tournament once, indeed they have not done it in ten years. The Major era also witnessed the rise of conference realignment and its effects on the Charlotte program.
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Charlotte has made two conference moves dating to just before its Tournament drought. The first one saw the destruction of the old strong Conference USA. 49ers fans should proudly remember that era, when the 49ers faced off and regularly beat Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and the better UAB teams. That conference was ripped apart by the domino effect of ACC expansion in 2004. The ACC took three programs from the Big East, who responded by taking three programs from Conference USA.
Betsided
The removal of the upper crust of Louisville and Cincinnati (with USF) stripped the credibility from the Conference USA basketball conference. Charlotte looked for a landing spot to stay relevant and they ended up in the Atlantic Ten. The Atlantic Ten was a league roughly on par with the old CUSA. There were no Louisvilles here either, but there was Dayton, George Washington, and some regional connection.
However recruiting took the hit due to that small loss of conference prestige. Oh sure, Bob Huggins helped a bit. When Huggins decided to revive his career at Kansas State, he took Delonte Hill from the 49ers. Hill was the 49ers connection to the DC AAU circuit. Famously, Michael Beasley, who had committed to Charlotte, now went to Kansas State instead. Despite Coach Bobby Lutz having been gone for five years now, the recruiting has never picked back up.
Garnet and Cocky
Football reared its head again as the university wanted a big time football team. The football team is now two years old and moving to Division FBS this year. They needed a landing spot and found one… in Conference USA. The basketball team had to move back to Conference USA, an even more diluted version as the American Athletic Conference was now the new Conference USA. That was an even bigger blow to the prestige of the basketball team and it had nothing to do with winning or losing games.
So now Major, who saw the move back to CUSA has been fired. He leaves behind a job in need of a talent infusion, but is currently a worse job to have than when Major got it. CUSA was a one bid league this year. Some people have been suggesting the Wofford coach Mike Young might be a good hire. He would be, but he has just as much chance of building tourney teams from the Southern Conference as he does the modern Conference USA. He should aim higher if he wants to leave Wofford.
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The 49ers’ most likely hires are guys who need to rebuild their reputations or new guys looking for a chance. Right now there are two recently fired coaches who the 49ers should look at. One is former Alabama coach Anthony Grant, recently fired despite a winning record for the Crimson Tide over his tenure. Grant was part of that wave of coaches that turned VCU into the program that is today. He was also the presumed successor to Billy Donovan when Donovan flirted with the Orlando Magic.
The problem with Grant is he might be able to do better than the Charlotte job. The same might not be said for Paul Hewitt, recently fired from George Mason. Hewitt has been on the decline ever since his days at Georgia Tech, but he has shown an ability to recruit and he needs a landing spot.
The other option would be some assistant from a big name program. Either way, the 49ers have to realize that whoever they hire will not likely be there for the long haul. Once the house is in order, they will probably leave for greener pastures. Maybe only Bobby Lutz ever viewed this as a destination job.