A special mahalo to Bob Nash for his outstanding contributions to the University of Hawaii as an All-American player and a coach/assistant for almost 30 years.
There is no doubt that he's a quality person and someone who gave much of his life and heart to the University of Hawaii. It was sad to see him fired as UH's head coach on Monday, but the program has to move on. As AD Jim Donovan said, it was a business decision.
With that said, UH needs to hire someone quickly to allow the new coach to secure some recruits for next year, to go along with the returnees. If UH drags its feet on this, it could have a negative impact and might hurt the Rainbows for the next two to three years.
In many of these cases, a university quickly draws up a short list of "hot" candidates, one who could come in with a proven track record as a consistent winner and recruiter. It could be someone at another successful college or junior college who is looking for the right situation to build a program and move up. If it's a top JC coach, he could bring along two or three of his talented players if his team has that many quality D-I recruits.
Bringing in a "name" coach would help, but at this juncture with a short amount of time to hire, the field will be limited. That's why if there isn't a safe choice in a proven winner, UH could go to some of the successful big schools and look for a top assistant who's waiting for his chance to be a head coach.
Pittsburgh snagged a good young assistant in Jaime Dixon several years ago from Hawaii, and look what happened. It makes you wonder if Dixon stayed around at UH if he would have eventually gotten a chance here. But he got the chance to go to a big-time program and later moved up to head coach. And he's done a terrific job at Pitt.
There are a lot of good, young assistant coaches out there at very good programs who might be a good fit. They would bring in a lot of youthful energy and could change the "brown bag/no frills" style that Riley Wallace and Bob Nash cultivated during their tenures.
Give Wallace and Nash credit for getting players who played hard and together, but outside of AC Carter, name five ex-Rainbows who were blue chip recruits and really did anything at the professional level after graduating. Most of UH's recruits were second-line players or foreign players who meshed together to make UH competitive but not a perennial WAC contender.
And how many young players did you see during the Wallace/Nash eras that developed over their two, three or four years into much better players? The players came in either fundamentally solid or just good athletes who mostly got by on their physical attributes, not their honed skills and technique.
UH is at an important cross roads with the men's basketball program. If the university can find the right guy soon, it might take a little bit of luck and who is available to take the job. If UH can't get the guy it wants, the school may have to go with a safe choice, one that could stabilize the program for now and give it some extra time to later move the program ahead in the right direction.
Don't shortchange UH. Hawaii is a beautiful place with a lot of great people, and recruiting here could be a bonus for the right coach with the right attitude to sell Hawaii's benefits to the potential recruits.
If the right guy is hired, there is no reason in the next two or three years UH shouldn't be challenging for the WAC title or maybe make a run at an NCAA tournament berth. If you look around the country, there have been several coaches over the past six or seven years to rebuild programs in a short period of time and win a league title or get to the Big Dance.
It's possible. Now, we just have to see what UH is going to do in the next two to three weeks. If ever there was an important hire, this could be the one that stabilizes the Rainbow basketball team for years to come.
Good luck UH.