Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Northern Arizona Coaching Search

Not much has come out of Northern Arizona regarding their search for a new head coach, but there was a nice article by Brett Murdock on Northern Arizona News.

So far, there have been three names to pop up in recent weeks — ASU assistant Scott Pera, Oregon State assistant David Grace and current Grand Canyon University head coach Russ Pennell.

All three have their merits: Pera has been at ASU for five years now and recruited current NBA player James Harden to the Sun Devils, Grace is in his fourth year at OSU and has been a successful head coach at every stop he’s made and Pennell took over for Lute Olson at Arizona during the 2008-09 season, leading the Wildcats to a Sweet 16 appearance before being hired at GCU.
There is no doubt that NAU brought in Dave Brown as a stopgap for the rest of the season to try to soothe some of the bad wounds left from previous head coach Mike Adras. From all accounts, Brown is the opposite in almost every way as a coach from Adras.

But as Murdock mentions, Brown obviously has no chance to have the interim tag removed from his title. NAU will be going in a different direction, and it is good to see at least some names emerge. While this season has been very bad, NAU certainly will have some talent on the roster for whoever becomes the new head coach.

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