Quick hitters for Friday:
• I'll be honest. I'll miss John Brady. There are few coaches who provided quotes the way Brady did over the last decade. He was always good for direct answers and was feisty, but he had an opinion that was always worth checking in on throughout the season.
• Why now? Well, LSU athletic director Skip Bertman didn't mince words as to why he fired Brady.
"The reason John was fired wasn't attendance; he just didn't win enough basketball games,'' Bertman said of the Tigers (8-13 overall, 1-6 in the SEC).
Bertman said that had he waited until the end of the season to fire Brady (even though he had already decided he wasn't going to be his coach anymore), then he would be "cheating the coach and cheating the kids."
• Brady is still employed through June 30. He'll get paid his base salary, $300,000, for each of the next three seasons unless he gets another job which would be offset against the salary.
Bertman said he would employ a search firm to replace Brady.
• Brady was remarkably calm, tearing up a bit (at least it sounded that way on the conference call) during the news conference. Not many coaches, less than two years removed from a Final Four, would come to their own firing conference. Brady won't duck his responsibilities, apparently. He's still speaking at a booster function before Saturday's Tennessee game and is going to do a radio show Monday.
• Bertman made it sound like assistants Butch Pierre, the interim coach, and assistant John Treloar (who he didn't name directly) would have a shot as the permanent coach.
• Still, it would make sense for LSU to go after USC's Tim Floyd since he's from New Orleans. But Floyd has made it clear he's comfortable in his new life in L.A. He has told me on many occasions how USC was his last job, and Bertman said he wouldn't interrupt any coach's current season.
• Bob Knight is available. Bertman said the next coach wouldn't know the next athletic director at the time of the hiring since Bertman is out. That's interesting. Can you imagine if Knight were hired before an AD?
• VCU's Anthony Grant makes a lot of sense as a viable candidate at SEC schools LSU and/or South Carolina since he was a longtime assistant at Florida.
• LSU had so many bad breaks since the Final Four, including Glen Davis declaring for the NBA draft, and notably Tasmin Mitchell, the team's best player, getting hurt this season and playing in only three games.
• LSU still has a ton of talent and has a highly-rated recruiting class coming in next season.
• It's hard to think about LSU without mentioning how the season unraveled in Philadelphia on Dec. 6 when the Tigers lost at Villanova after leading by 21 points.
• Dave Odom announced he was resigning at South Carolina, but he didn't mention retiring. That's why it's a viable option for him to be at East Carolina if the Pirates don't hire interim coach Mack McCarthy. The current AD, Terry Holland, is Odom's former boss at Virginia.
• Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg was disgusted by Brady's in-season firing, saying that the college game has become just like the NBA.
• The count is now up to five for in-season moves: LSU, South Carolina, Oregon State, Pepperdine and San Francisco. East Carolina made its move prior to the season.
Andy Katz
