Dickey Nutt looks like a lock for SEMO's job
It appears Southeast has its new men's basketball coach.
It's Dickey Nutt.
Feel free to go back to napping, washing laundry, filing your nails — any of the things that are bound to add more excitement to your day than the arrival of Dickey Nutt to the Cape Girardeau city limits.
The big announcement — if you can call it that — should formally come Thursday from athletic director John Shafer at a 2 p.m. news conference. It's the culmination of a quiet search that Shafer said produced piles of quality applications, rumored to include a lengthy list of former Division I coaches, assistant coaches and others with ties to the area.
And from that pile, we bring you Dickey Nutt.
Remember the "40 minutes of hell" basketball with fired coach Scott Edgar? Get ready for 40 minutes of "oh well" with Nutt.
By all accounts, Nutt's a nice enough guy. A solid nuts-and-bolts coach, a decent recruiter, a good ol' boy born and raised in Arkansas.
He came within three wins of becoming the all-time winningest coach at Arkansas State before he got the hint — a mostly loud, less-than-subtle hint — that he was no longer welcome. He resigned in February 2008 with a resume that included 13 seasons at the school (seven of them winning seasons), one conference championship, and one short-lived trip to the NCAA Tournament. His overall record: 189 wins, 187 losses.
But after Nutt's homecoming wore off at ASU, his teams had trouble drawing 2,000 fans to home games at ASU's Convocation Center. He always had trouble selling recruits on small-town life in Jonesboro, Ark., a city even bigger than the one he's been hired to build up.
And he hardly fits the original dream candidate described by Shafer, who said in January that "you can see there's a lot of enthusiasm and people are hungry. I want to do something to help that."
But the hiring of Nutt, who turns 50 in June, was a safe, stable choice for Shafer, himself a newbie on the SEMO payroll. And for a program still trying to argue its way out of impending NCAA sanctions left over from the Edgar era, maybe a safe choice was the best choice. It was certainly an easy choice.
Even if it has all the excitement of watching paint dry.
7 comments:
I think most will find he is a very good recruiter. He recruited well to ASU, just had terrible luck with injuries to key players most seasons. He will bring the program well rounded young men and will be very involved with the community...case in point he personally paid the money to finish a community center for kids. He will do very well at SEMO.
Suckers!!!! I'm glad you guys hired away from Northeast Arkansas.
I feel soooo sorry for SEMO fans, they deserve better than this. We at ASU danced in the streets when our administration FINALLY got rid of this cancer. However they let him take the program to rock bottom before he was forced out. Surely SEMO could have done better !!!!!!!
SEMO got a steal with coach Nutt. No doubt he will build a program the fans in SE Missouri will be proud of. They will soon cut down the nets in the Show Me Center. I'll be buying season tickets. The new Redhawks will be fun to watch. SEMO didnt need a final four coach to get things right.
Seriously Jamie.....I want to know...what did you expect? Bobby Knight or Coach K??...You look at the list of "top" candidates...Old Sutton (previous NCAA sanctions), Young Sutton (father's legacy follows, plus looking for a springboard job...which means will probably do whatever it takes to have 1 good year to move on), Hinson (great guy that did well with a good group of local kids but as a coach is nothing better than what we just hired), Soderberg (my favorite, but not leaps and bounds better than Nutt), and Young Spoon (probably bring in better character guys than the Suttons, but would have looked at the job as a springboard....one good year and out).
For this program to actually make something of itself, there really needs to be some consistancy. They need a guy that is willing to stick around 10 years and build a good program that can compete in the OVC and do it with players that are not going to cause trouble. Lets face it. SEMO will NEVER EVER be a national championship contender. The only mid major team that is even slightly mentioned as a top team in the country year in and year out is Gonzaga. The reality though, is that right now SEMO is nowhere near considered a mid major and barely can pass for a D1 team. Turning this program around has to start with some stability and will take some time. Lets give Nutt a chance and see what he can do. It really can only get better.
"I'll be buying season tickets"
You can have mine because I called the ticket office this morning and told them to cancel my three tix. The 3 that I have had since 1995.
Do you honestly think Nutt is going to be here 10 years? Yea right, he's 49, and if and that is a big if he turns it around, he will be gone in 3. SEMO was smart to get that 4th year, because if he leaves before then they get at least 50% of that last year back. If he doesn't turn it around, he will be gone in 3 or 4 years anyways. He's not staying 4 years. SEMO doesn't even expect him to, as they didn't build in any contract extenders for winning the OVC, etc. This is clearly a "springboard" job for Nutt as well.
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