Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Vacancy at Old Dominion
By Matt Giles
Old Dominion was not a very good team this season. The Monarchs, who had been to either the NCAA or NIT five of the past eight seasons, struggled mightily, even with the addition of NC State big DeShawn Painter. During a recent loss to George Mason, a game that was televised on the NBC College Sports network, ODU lost badly, so perhaps it was not a coincidence that Taylor was not on this week's CAA conference call. Per Ed Miller of the Virginia Pilot, Taylor has been dismissed by the soon-to-be Conference USA program.
The move by the Old Dominion administration is somewhat shocking, and has to go beyond wins and losses. In twelve seasons at the school, Taylor's team finished under .500 just three times, and was involved in some sort of postseason play for 75 percent of those years. David Teel of the Daily Press reported that ODU AD Wood Selig had, as of two weeks ago, proclaimed that Taylor's job was safe as the season ended, so we wonder if something occurred behind the scenes during that fortnight.
It is way to early to begin speculating on who might be next in-line for the Monarchs' opening, but ODU was a top tier job in the CAA, and is arguably one of the better jobs in the C-USA. For the interim period, one has to believe that Jim Corrigan will be promoted from his assistant's role, and could very likely be a top candidate for the full-time position. Some within the college basketball realm are throwing about Jeff Capel's name, but it would seem odd if the Duke assistant was a serious candidate considering his father coached, and was fired from, Old Dominion.
