Turned down by SEMO, Rod Barnes lands a new job in Georgia
Rod Barnes, the fired Mississippi coach who was one of three final applicants for SEMO's men's basketball job, was hired Monday as the basketball coach at Georgia State, a Colonial Athletic Association team.
Barnes was one of three finalists for the Southeast job after former coach Gary Garner was fired. The job ultimately went to Scott Edgar. Jay Spoonhour was the other finalist at SEMO. Spoonhour later became an assistant head coach at Texas-San Antonio, and Barnes was an assistant coach at Oklahoma this season.
Barnes was the 2001 Naismith national coach of the year after Mississippi finished with a school-record 27 wins and landed in the Sweet 16. But after earning NCAA bids in three of his first four years at the school, Barnes was fired in March 2006 after four straight losing seasons. He was 141-107 in eight years at Mississippi, his alma mater.
The move is effective July 1, 2008. Samford, which is a private school in Birmingham, Ala., has been a member of the OVC since 2003. The move will leave the OVC with 10 member schools after the 2007-08 school year and give the SoCon 12 schools, which will allow it to create two divisions.
There's already talk that the OVC eventually could pursue Southern Illinois-Edwardsville as a member; SIU-E is in the process of moving up from Division II and will compete at the Division I level with the 2008-'09 season.
At least for the upcoming football season, the OVC will have 10 member schools with the addition of Austin Peay. Once Samford leaves after this season, that number drops to nine.
Unless a school is found quickly, Samford's move will create two open dates on SEMO's basketball schedules. The Redhawks would play 18 league games instead of 20.
4 comments:
I think the OVC should look at Central Ark and Western Ill. Travel wise would not be that big of a burden, and institution-wise they are very similar to other OVC schools being regional public schools. Also similar in enrollment, athletic budgets, tuition, size of town, etc. Add Central Ark and Western Ill. UCA would travel with Semo, and WIU would travel with EIU. Western Ill brings more publicity to the OVC in the state of Illinois, and UCA would add an Arkansas presence - along with a little bit of pub in Little Rock (and yes, I know it would be minor). They key here is name recognition among the other OVC schools when recruiting non-athlete students.
My OVC in the year 2009---
OVC West:
1) Semo
2) Central Ark
3) Tenn-Martin
4) Murray
5) WIU
6) EIU
OVC East:
1) Jacksonville St
2) Tenn Tech
3) Tennessee St
4) Austin Peay
5) EKU
6) Morehead St
Morehead will probably bring back scholarship football within 3-4 years. And if/when JSU eventually leaves, East Tenn St could easily take their spot and be travel aprtners with Tech.
There was talk of eventually making it a 12-team league when Jacksonville State and Samford joined, but that obviously takes a step back with Samford leaving. The OVC has made efforts to get UT-Chattanooga, but UCA would be an obvious choice too -- as far as I know, they haven't chosen a conference yet in the move up to D-I.
UCA is in the Southland, competing against teams from Texas and Louisiana (alot of them very good travel distances away).
UCA was much smarter than Siu-E though, UCA waited to get in a conference before they moved up. Siu-E is moving up without an affiliation yet, 'hoping' to get in one eventually.
As for the OVC overall, there's a lot of speculation that Jacksonville State will move up to D-I and join the Sun Belt Conference in 4-5 years; they're doing major work at the stadium at JSU and expanding to 30,000 seats in preparation. Northern Kentucky, North Alabama and West Georgia are all being mentioned as future OVC teams pending a move up from Division II.
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