It finally happened to Herb Sendek. After nine seasons at Arizona State as the head coach of it's men's basketball program he was fired. There are certain schools where it's just tough to succeed. In the recent past, ASU has turned into that kind of school. Why? There are multitude of reasons. Should there be issues recruiting to Tempe, AZ? There shouldn't be. I was not a Sendek fan, but I did feel for him in terms of what he had to deal with as coach of the Sun Devils.
Sendek compiled a better than .500 record in his nine seasons on the bench for ASU. His total record was 159-137 in those nine seasons. Sendek met with Sun Devil athletic director Ray Anderson this morning for a short time and the decision was obviously made during the meeting and the announcement came shortly after that. This kind of move by ASU should not come as a shock to anybody. To me, this was something that should have been done a few years ago. Sendek is a nice guy, a good coach, but he had an immense issue in recruiting. He just could not bring the talent to the Pac-12 school and if you can't do that, the result is simply a pink slip at some point. The only big talent he brought in was Jahi Carson, from Mesa High School. College athletics is about recruiting and if you have trouble doing that, you are not going to be employed for any period of time.
When you think of Arizona State, you think of a team in a power 5 conference, a huge school, sun, a decent talent base from which to recruit, and some very nice "surroundings". How quickly are they acting in terms of filling the position? Extremely quickly.
They already have had a couple of kids say that they are not coming to the Sun Devils anymore. They have had at least one kid on the roster already talk about the possibility of leaving the program. The program needs to stem the tide of kids saying that they want to transfer or decomit from the program otherwise the cupboard will be even barer for the incoming coach. Now, the cupboard was not full in the first place, but ASU can't allow anymore decomits or possible transfer to happen.
Speaking of the incoming coach, who do they go after? From all accounts, it sounds like it is Jeff Capel, assistant coach at Duke. They have contacted him through back channels and there seems to be interest from him as well. Is this the best guy for the job? Possibly. He does have head coaching experience at Oklahoma, it did end in some controversy for him, so there is a little bit of baggage that comes with him.
Who else comes to mind? Shaka Smart? Archie Miller? These are or would be solid hires, but I don't think they would take the job. Miller doesn't want to compete with his brother at Arizona, so he's not coming. I don't know if the Sun Devils are high enough profile for Shaka Smart, he seems like a guy that wants to take a UCLA or Louisville type of job at some point. I think the decision has been made to go with Capel, so it would take someone coming out of no where to take the job from Jeff Capel.
The other thing that Arizona State is obviously going to be ready to do is to step up in monetary sense for their next coach. They won't go into the 3 million dollar range, but they will have to be in the next tier down from that. Probably around the 1.5-2 million area. To attract the coach that will turn around this basketball program, the money dedication has to be there.
Just think of this Sun Devil fans. The football program is on the up tick, the baseball program is top-25 program, and if, just if, the basketball program can be turned around, imagine how big of an athletic monster that would be created in Tempe. It could turn into the place where athletes of all those three sports go to. If the monster is awoken, watch out Pac-12.
That awakening is far off though. For right now, ASU needs to concentrate on filling their men's basketball position. Let's see what happens in the next few days to a week. If it is Jeff Capel, lets hope he can awaken the monster at Arizona State. Forks Up!
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