UCLA assistant Donny Daniels to Gonzaga?

[Russ Smith]

Being reported he is close to a deal to become an assistant to Mark Few at Gonzaga. This has been rumored for a bit now that Howland was going to make some changes to the staff in light of some of the recent recruiting issues. With Howland dismissing Bobo Morgan from the team today and Daniels possibly leaving it would appear that the rumors are true.

Also with a grain of salt but UCLA recruit Josh Smith reportedly told Draft Express people Ray McCallum to UCLA is "a done deal". I doubt it I think he goes to Detroit plays for his dad, but would be nice if it were true.

 

[Russ Smith]

One rumor has UCLA hiring ex Oregon and UA assistant Mike Dunlap. Daniels is UCLA's top assistant and the bigman coach, he's the assistant most fans wanted to retain, but Dunlap has a pretty good reputation especially for defense so it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Daniels worked wonders with Mata, and I know he was very high on Stover and had some influence on Josh Smith so we'll see if he really leaves how it impacts UCLA.

Just more evidence Howland is determined to shake things up after this recent season.

 

[Russ Smith]

Officially a done deal Daniels is gone to Gonzaga. howland's presser seemed pretty clear, Daniels chose to leave, wasn't asked to leave. Ben said they're good friends, Donny felt strongly about the move and Ben supports him fully on it. Left several questions for Daniels to answer himself but he had wisdom teeth out today so won't answer questions today.

Howland said UCLA wouldn't hire any new assistant until after the 2010 recruiting class is done, so at least 3 weeks. Said he wants to sign 3 more players, doesn't see any other transfers(beyond Morgan) and doesn't expect anybody to test the waters(apparently including Lee). He joked that if there is a coach out there with a 7 foot son he'd hire him and then said there is no Danny Manning out there and he wanted a Kareem anyways. Someone asked what about someone with a PG for a son(McCallum) and he just laughed. It's possible they will lose the director of Basketball OPS, he's up for a job with a womens team, rumor is if he leaves, Ben will hire former player Marshall Land who he coached while at Northern Arizona, Land just lost his job when the staff at another school was fired.

Wouldn't offer up any names as possible replacements.

On McCallum, Josh Smith has been telling people at the McDonald's practices that he thinks he's convinced McCallum to sign with UCLA but I still expect he'll pick Detroit to play for his dad. Every year you hear so and so is recruiting guys at that event and it never seems to come true.

Howland said he didn't anticipate any other staff changes which is interesting since daniels clearly left on his own and it was widely expected UCLA would change one of Garson or Duncan.

 

[Russ Smith]

Hmm, the plot thickens, Central Michigan fired Ernie Ziegler today. he of course was an assistant at UCLA until he got the CMU job. And he of course has a son Trey Ziegler who is an unsigned 2010 guard. Will be interesting, Howland made it clear he has nobody lined up to replace Daniels, but Ziegler would make sense since he was a valuable member of the original staff Howland hired at UCLA. Would be intriguing since one would assume his son might want to follow him which would bring up the question of a package deal. I guess they'll deal with that if it happens, clearly a case where the guy already was an assistant at UCLA so not the normal package deal but still something they would have to consider before acting.

Honestly if UCLA were going to hire back any ex assistants I would prefer Kerry Keating, he's still at Santa Clara, he was a critical guy as a recruiter and as a go between with the players and Howland. Ziegler was important as a recruiter and Daniels as a bigman coach.