If you are a mid- major basketball program like Nevada and have a great coach like Eric Musselman, this is a scary time of the year.
Some coaches have already lost their jobs and others undoubtedly are about to, and that means Musselman, who has taken Northern Nevada by storm in his first two seasons at the University of Nevada, is a hot commodity.
Will he be around for a third? I know Nevada fans hate to read something like that, but it’s fact. Power 5 schools I’m sure have already taken a look at him, and anybody who knows anything about basketball knows his pedigree and successful resume., and more importantly, the ability to develop talent.
Currently, there are openings at LSU, Missouri and Illinois, Musselman is more than qualified for all three. In fact, he was an assistant at LSU a few years ago. No doubt as jobs become open, his name will be linked.
Nevadans went through this when Mark Fox was head coach, and jobs became open at Cal and Nebraska. It’s a tense time for the local school.
Musselman is working for $350,000 plus bonuses, a mere pittance to what he deserves. No doubt he will get a raise when his contract comes up for renewal or is re-negotiated, but can that get done before somebody offers him a boatload of money and he leaves?
Missouri just lost its basketball coach, and experts are saying that Missouri is interested in Cuonzo Martin, current Cal head coach.
Musselman would be a great fit at Cal, and he could probably make twice as much at least. I doubt that Nevada will ever be able to pony up seven figures for a coach in any sport. He would also be a great fit at LSU where the coach was recently let go.
Musselman’s youngest son still lives in Danville. If Musselman was the Cal coach, he would get to see his son a lot more than he currently does, and that has to be attractive to him. That is why I think that Musselman will keep a close eye on any Pac-12 openings.
I think that the coaches at Washington, Oregon State and Arizona State could be in jeopardy within the next couple of years.
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I remember the first time I saw Boise State junior Shalen Shaw play basketball at Reno High.
Shaw’s versatility and athleticism were impressive. Long and athletic, she could do a little bit of everything on the floor, and she did it without showing much emotion.
She would be a great poker player. Ypu would never know if she was holding a pair of 3s or had a full house. She wears the same expression whether her team is winning and losing. Never too high or never too low.
Shaw was never the star at Reno, but she was a vital cog in her four years as a Husky point guard just as she has been a vital cog as a forward in Boise State’s success.
Shaw and her Boise State teammates celebrated their second MW post-season championship Friday with a 66-53 win over Fresno State at Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus.
And, Shaw, did her usual thing. She scored 12 points, grabbed nine rebounds, dished out three assists, and also had a steal and a block. Not a bad day’s work. Shaw is one of those blue-collar players that every team loves to have. A lot of what she does never shows up in a box score.
When the smoke cleared on Friday, Shaw had become the second player in BSU history to score 800 points, grab 600 rebounds and dish out 200 assists. Impressive doesn’t even begin to cover it.
“I found out about it walking over here (from the locker room),” Shaw said from the podium after the title victory. “What an accomplishment. I don’t even have the words for it.. As for my team, it’s just playing for them and doing everything I can to help us win and get here and win. I’m just speechless right now.”
Shaw’s value, is not lost on her coach, Gordy Presnell.
“When we went through our bad January where we were 3-6, she was missing in four of those games and we lost three of them,” Presnell said. “And, we haven’t lost since she came back.
“Sha is an unusual player in that she can play all five positions, and she can guard the point guard some of the time, but she can guard a post player as well. So to have a player have 800 points, 600 rebounds and 200 assists is pretty remarkable in women’s basketball. I’m excited about what she can do for us next year when she has to step in and be a leader.”
Shaw, who averages 10.3 and a team-leading 7 rebounds a game, averages 27 minutes a game off the bench. She uis usually the first or second player off the BSU bench
“She isn’t starting because she has a bad habit of picking up an early foul, so we wanted to shorten the game up for her a little bit,” Presnell said. “It gets Joyce (Harrell) involved more, and I thought Joyce came up big for us.”