UCLA fires Steve Alford

[Southpaw]

Seems Alford has been offered the Nevada job.

"
Steve Alford is landing on his feet.

According to Jeff Goodman of Stadium, Alford will be the next coach at Nevada barring a late breakdown in negotiations, replacing Eric Musselman, who left for the Arkansas job."


\https://larrybrownsports.com/college-basketball/steve-alford-new-nevada-coach/491175

 

[Dback Jon]

Good spot for Alford

 

[Russ Smith]

One of their best young prospects, Jordan Brown, was nearly a UCLA Bruin when Alford was there. All the rumors were he was very interested but after Shareef decommitted from Arizona, he committed to UCLA. The rumor was UCLA got tired of waiting on Brown and basically told him commit now or we're taking Shareef. So it'll be interesting to see what he does, I expect he'll stay and have a good year I never quite got why he was so slow to commit his recruit lingered for ages before he picked Nevada and then he came off the bench because he picked a team full of seniors.

Alford's not a horrible coach but I have to admit I'm surprised he took a job this quickly. I don't think they ever made his buyout negotiation public but I assume that he got good money when he got fired and since his contract still had time on it I assume he would have gotten paid to NOT coach had he stayed out of work.

Outside of the Lonzo year it seemed like the last 2 he was somewhat coasting like he knew he was on borrowed time, maybe sitting out a few months he's recharged his batteries.

Nevada has a nice program going it'll be interesting to see if Alford keeps the same living off transfers approach Mussleman had going so well, it's not something he did at UCLA, had several at UNM.

 

[Russ Smith]

Jordan Brown is transferring from Nevada BTW from my prior post.

Looks like UCLA is interviewing SIerra Canyon head coach Andre Chevalier for one of the assistant spots. They already hired Cronin's top assistant from Cincy to the staff but Chevalier would obviously be a recruiting So Cal hire. They just lost Cassius Stanley from Sierra Canyon to Duke although I'm not a huge fan of his and if rumors are true I wouldn't be at all surprised if Stanley leaves after 1 year either for the NBA or transfers, in fact some think he won't even make it to his freshman year at Duke before he changes his mind. UCLA already has a verbal from a freshman at Sierra Canyon but it's one of those where you put no stock in it because he's so young, the coaching staff has changed, and the kid is literally in some made for cable reality show about moms raising "ballers". Talented kid no doubt but way too far out.

I normally hate these sort of hires but UCLA has to compete, USC hired the father of 2 top prospects(AAU coach too) to get kids from Compton Magic, arizona's recruiting is back on a roll, and Nike errr Duke has now come in and got Bagley and Stanley out of LA in the last 3 recruiting classes. So it's either "build a wall" our hire someone to keep the kids home and Chevalier would make some sense in that regard.

 

[Russ Smith]

UCLA finished up their staff yesterday hiring ex Nebraska assistant Michael Lewis. Lewis worked for Brad Stevens at Butler at one point, is considered more of an offensive coach. So the staff is set, Mick Cronin, Darren Savino, Rod Palmer and Lewis, 4 completely bald guys!

In his spare time Lewis wrote Money Ball and the Big Short (-:

 

[Russ Smith]

Cronin lands first commitment in elite PG Daishen Nix of Las Vegas. Scout has him rated #1 PG in the class, ESPN has him as 5th best PG. 6'5" a thick strong kid, great passer, not hyper athletic, not a great shooter but terrific player. Best comparison I've seen is a guy on BRO saying he's a bigger better passing Nigel Williams-Goss who wound up being a very good college player at UW and Gonzaga and I believe is on an NBA roster now.

 

[DWKB]

Cronin lands first commitment in elite PG Daishen Nix of Las Vegas. Scout has him rated #1 PG in the class, ESPN has him as 5th best PG. 6'5" a thick strong kid, great passer, not hyper athletic, not a great shooter but terrific player. Best comparison I've seen is a guy on BRO saying he's a bigger better passing Nigel Williams-Goss who wound up being a very good college player at UW and Gonzaga and I believe is on an NBA roster now.

48 hours after announcing a top 5?

Cronin must have a pretty good bag man. No PG wants to play in that offense.

 

[Russ Smith]

48 hours after announcing a top 5?

Cronin must have a pretty good bag man. No PG wants to play in that offense.

He visited UCLA that weekend and there were lots of rumors he was going to commit on the visit so not a real surprise to UCLA fans. I think the top 5 was largely to give him a day or 2 to think it over before deciding. The kid says Cronin told him he's going to run more at UCLA than he did at Cincy, we'll see of course.

You're probably aware but Nix is actually unusual in this day and age he did not have a bigtime AAU program with a bigtime shoe company affiliation like we've been reading about for 2 years with Adidas and Nike. Apparently UCLA had an in with his legal guardian Greg Lockridge who is also his AAU coach. No idea what the relationship was and of course wouldn't surprise me at all if a kid that highly ranked got something one way or another but part of the reason his commitment surprised so many non UCLA people is that he's not the normal elite HS recruit he's bypassed much of the AAU circuit stuff. Kentucky sites were reporting Monday that UK was the leader and was going to get an official visit. Then he announced his final 5 and they were on it, and then he committed to UCLA.

ANother rumor out there that Jaden Hardy in 2021 is going to reclass to 2020 and UCLA is the leader. He and Nix are buddies. I guess we'll see.