Since Arizona State announced Bobby Hurley would not be back as its men’s basketball head coach, there’s been plenty of interest in the job opening, ASU athletic director Graham Rossini said Thursday on the Sun Devil Extra podcast.
For Rossini, it’s a good indication “that people see ASU as a destination job in basketball.”
The athletic director, however, has a big prerequisite regarding the opening.
“I want it to be a situation where somebody’s excited specifically about the chance to be the head men’s basketball coach at Arizona State University,” Rossini said. “Not the chance to be a Power 4 head coach. Not a chance to join the Big 12. How their style, how their background, how their lived experience is a fit for what we need at this exact moment in our program. … There are a lot of coaches that are ready to have success in the Big 12, that they’re ready for a move into this conference. … That’s only half the equation.
“It’s got to be somebody that understands what ASU is, understands what this opportunity could mean from a basketball standpoint, from a quality-of-life standpoint, from a leadership standpoint and understand how they fit in. Because we’re not for everybody, and that’s OK.”
Those qualities show on a list of potential candidates that Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro released upon the news of ASU moving on from Hurley, who spent 11 seasons leading the Sun Devils.
Among the names are Randy Bennett, the long-time Saint Mary’s head coach, who is from Mesa, Arizona.
Portland State head coach Jase Coburn is an ASU graduate who coached at Corona Del Sol High School and McClintock High School in Tempe, plus a stop at what was then called Phoenix Junior College.
“We’re not a situation where any coach can just plug and play,” Rossini said. “You’ve got to understand what you’re coming into. You got to understand the trajectory of this university, the amazing market that we live in, the access that you have to talent at a local level. … Now in the Big 12, we have a national brand, and we have a powerhouse conference behind us.
“That opens up the country, and for that matter, internationally,” he added. “That gives us all the opportunity to build a recruiting base, but more importantly, it’s (about having) a coach that’s understanding how to utilize ASU in their endeavor to build a successful basketball program.”
Drumming up that kind of interest provides the Sun Devils with more than enough avenues to go down as they scour for a new head coach.
The list of candidates could get long, which is why Rossini is once again turning to search firm Elevate, the same company that aided the university in bringing aboard women’s basketball head coach Molly Miller.
So far, that move has worked out for the Sun Devils, with ASU posting a 24-10 regular season record in Miller’s first season after going 10-22 the year prior. The program is considered on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s important to have people who have been through basketball searches before to help navigate and coming into the process now with great insights and experience that really helps guide us and just industry perspective and relationships with agents, relationships with people, that when we need to get feedback from a particular candidate,” Rossini said.
“Elevate will be a great tool for us to do that. That’s step one. Then it’s looking at the list we’ve been keeping. It’s understanding who’s reaching out with interest.”
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