NC State Wolfpack: Trying to Suggest Gottfried’s Successor
The NC State Wolfpack coaching search may not be out the gates, but speculation has already started.
Mark Gottfried is out as the head coach of the NC State Wolfpack and already the speculation has started on who might replace him at the end of the season. Current Dayton Flyers head coach Archie Miller was asked about his interest by the Newy Scruggs Show on the NBC Sports Network and denied that anybody had been in contact with him.
Miller is probably the number one coaching candidate out there for State. He is relatively young (graduated 2002). He is a State alumnus who was an assistant at the school under Herb Sendek. He has had some success at Dayton in the NCAA Tournament, and there is a ceiling of how far Dayton (an Atlantic 10 school) can be expected to go. The ACC is currently the top league in the land and therefore a step up.
Of course the guy that State really wants is Sean Miller, the brother of Archie. The elder Miller is the head coach of the Arizona Wildcats and has brought that team back up to contender status. That is the very reason that he wouldn’t come to State. He has a team capable of producing national champions with a clearer path (notably without Duke, UNC, or other ACC contender).
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An interesting play for State might be to the Missouri Valley Conference. That is the stomping ground of Wichita State Shockers coach Gregg Marshall. Marshall has a great reputation of building the Shockers into a perennial threat from mid-major land. They are not quite Gonzaga (which is on an ocean of water, not corn), but Marshall is an attractive target. He was even once at Winthrop in South Carolina.
State would provide access to the best league in the land for Marshall, but the concern has to be that he is waiting for some truly big fish to come open. After all, Marshall could easily have left Wichita by now if all he needed was a major conference job. The fit would make some sense, but if Marshall is happy then maybe is also happy to wait.
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An alternative move would be for State to hire Jeff Capel from off Coach K’s bench. Capel has proven recruiting connections and his loss would certainly hurt Duke in the short term. He had some success at Oklahoma so this is not some shot in the dark.
Finally there is the move that State won’t do. They won’t hire Larry Brown. Brown is available, but the tactician is old and has a history of bringing the NCAA to town after he leaves (or sometimes before).