Hate to disrupt another discussion of Carl Tacy, but I posted this yesterday on the thread about Illinois hiring Groce and thought it's applicable here as well:
It's interesting that Illinois feels entitled to hire a "more established" head coach. Goes back to my other thread -- aside from Brad Stevens and Shaka Smart, who seem to be pretty content in their current situations right now, there aren't any sure-thing mid-major coaches. Groce seems to be on that next tier below, along with perhaps Gregg Marshall (who seems to be a challenging personality). Then you have another tier of guys for whom the jury is still very much out -- Lehigh coach, Bucknell coach, etc. There just aren't a ton of hot names.
Combine that with the fact that coaches at high major programs just don't move around very much. With rare exceptions, for a guy to move from one high major to another basically appears to require one of the following situations: (1) taking job at alma mater or where you have pre-existing relationship (e.g., Bob Huggins, Roy Williams, Mike Anderson); (2) taking a job at a traditional powerhouse program (e.g., Ben Howland, Tom Crean, John Calipari, Bill Self, Mark Turgeon); (3) escaping an unhappy/tenuous relationship with AD or fanbase (Frank Martin, Frank Haith, Oliver Purnell). You occasionally get the situation where a coach leaves a job at a high major school without a basketball tradition for another job that is not a traditional powerhouse, but does have a better basketball tradition (Jeff [Redacted], Tony Bennett, John Beilein), but even those seem to be rare.
In general, high major schools who aren't UNC, UCLA, Indiana, Kentucky, or Kansas hire mid-major coaches. Billy Donovan, Tom Izzo, and Jay Wright don't leave their schools to coach at NC State, Illinois, or Wake Forest. Illinois fans ought to understand that, and we should remember that the next time Wake Forest goes hunting for a new coach.
