We should have seen it coming. Mark Fox leaving the Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball program for the Georgia Bulldogs shouldn't shock anybody. First of all, basketball coaches come and go. It's what they do. And, second, Fox continually dropped hints to us all season that he wasn't exactly thrilled to be coaching at Nevada anymore. In February he went out of his way to tell us how assistant coach David Carter should be the next Pack coach once he leaves the program. He made that passionate plea, by the way, in front of athletic director Cary Groth in a postgame press conference. A few weeks later, right before the Pack was to host a College Basketball Invitational game at Lawlor Events Center, Fox told us how he asked the athletic program to make sure his team went out on the road for the game.
In that same press conference he pointed out how the NCAA looks down on teams from conferences like the Western Athletic Conference when it comes to picking teams for the NCAA Tournament and NIT.
Make no mistake, the Wolf Pack will miss Fox. But this program survived the loss of Trent Johnson and it will survive the loss of Fox, especially if Carter is indeed the new coach. Hiring Carter might be crucial for the Pack to keep this successful era going, if only to make sure that young players like Luke Babbitt, Armon Johnson and Dario Hunt remain in Silver & Blue. Carter has certainly earned the job.
Fox was never going to retire at Nevada. The guy proved right from the start that he was a big-time coach. He deserves to be at a big-time school like Georgia, where he can now go up against his buddy Johnson at LSU every year.
Have you made any plans for this Thanksgiving weekend yet? Well, how does a couple days in Boise sound? Pretty awesome, huh? You bet. Well, you better get your hotel room now, you know, before the guys in the orange hunting vests grab them all. This Nov. 27, the Friday after Turkey Day, the Wolf Pack football team will take on the hated Boise State Broncos in what could be the biggest game in Nevada history. A nine-game losing streak against the hated Boise Boys should be enough to get the Wolf Pack excited to go to Boise. But how does an 11-0 Wolf Pack record going into the game sound with visions of a BCS bowl game dancing in your head.
Hey, it's April. It's OK to dream, right? The Pack opens its season at Notre Dame and Colorado State before debuting at home against Missouri. That's three wins right there. Notre Dame hasn't been Notre Dame since Lou Holtz left South Bend. Colorado State lost its top running back (Gartre Johnson) and quarterback (Billy Farris) off last year's team. Missouri is starting over with 59 freshmen and just one senior on its roster. After that comes very winnable games against UNLV, Louisiana Tech. Utah State, Idaho, Hawaii, San Jose State, Fresno State and New Mexico State. That makes the Pack 11-0 for the first time since 1991, heading to Boise on a tryptophan high. A perfect 12-0 regular season is there for the taking. The Pack will be the Utah of 2009. Dare to dream, Pack fans.
But enough about football season. It's still basketball season, right? If your NCAA bracket was destroyed (like mine) last weekend and you are looking for someone to
root for in the Final Four, how about North Carolina? The Tar Heels could become just the second team in history to win a NCAA Tournament after playing the Wolf Pack in the same season. UTEP, in its historical 1965-66 title year, is the only team to play the Pack in the same season it won a national title. In case you are wondering, North Carolina is just the 10th team to play the Pack and advance to the
Final Four in the same season. The others are Cal (1946), Drake (1969), UTEP (1966), UNLV (1987, 1991), Georgia Tech (2004), Illinois (2005), UCLA (2006) and North Carolina last year. Now go win a bar bet.
The NCAA needs a new basketball rule. How about making it a violation to fire a head coach, look for a head coach or announce the hiring of a new head coach during the NCAA tournament? Why take away any of the attention from the
teams and players that deserve it this time of year? All of the Tim Floyd, Fox, Georgia, John Calipari, Arizona, Memphis, Virginia, USC, Kentucky (the list goes on and on) talk this month is a bit ugly. We should be focusing on all of the great accomplishments on the court at this time of year and not all of the slimy coaching moves going on.
