Christian to TCU

[Hilltopper]

It appears he is gone. http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/story/10745070

[ZachTheZip]

Who's replacing him? Whoever it is will have a mess on their hands if they can't continue recruiting JUCOs.

[zipsbandman]

Whoah where did that come from? I love it. Can't State gets it handed to them in the tournament and STILL losses their pride and joy. Geno Ford will be the replacement for Christian. From what I hear he is pretty good. They will still be tough, but considering we have a guy like Keith Dambrot I'll always like our chances. After next season, Can't can really go down the crapper once they lose their entire team of JUCO's to graduation.

[Zipsrifle]

HA! HA!

[zipseuph]

so what do we know about Geno Ford?

[Let'sGoZips94]

Pretend I'm a Can't fan. This is what I'm doing right now... Ford will have a tough time for the next couple of years. With Mike Scott and Ham-n-Cheese graduating, they almost have no height. He will also have to deal with all the people Christian recruited for next year. Can't (I hope) will be down for a while. Come on Akron keep Dambrot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!But good luck to Christian at TCU. I loved how classy he was. I will always remember the game this year at Can't State when there was that fight at the end. The classless Can't students really prooved that the sign they held up (We Suck) was true. They started throwing stuff at Earthquade and onto the court. Christian grabbed the mic and announced for them to stop. That's a classy move right there. Good luck to Christian. Wouldn't be that bad to see TCU on a future schedule.

[Let'sGoZips94]

Little info on Ford:Ford, was assistant basketball coach at Can't State University from 2002-2005.Went to Ohio University.http://www.muskingum.edu/home/athletics/ba...dHeadCoach.htmlFor more info, visit the link. In my opinion, he's choosing all of the wrong colleges. I'd have to say this survey says... X!

[Zipsrifle]

To me this seems like he just wanted to get out of Can't. This happened pretty quick, and I don't know how much money is involved, but TCU has been mediocre in recent history. 2007 - 2008 - 14 - 162006 - 2007 - 13 - 172005 - 2006 - 6 - 252004 - 2005 - 21 - 14 If there isn't a ton of money involved, then he was probably willing to take almost anything to get out of Can't. As someone mentioned on here earlier, he was looking to get out and move up. He probably felt he had peaked at Can't and they weren't going to get any better in the future. I have to say I take great joy in Can't's misery right now. Hopefully Ford runs them into the gutter.

[KSUflash07]

Word has it that they will be paying him $400-700k. TCU recently came into a huge gift to the BBall program and there will be new facilities.Chances are, if KD could get akron to the level and consistency of Can't and was offered another position, he'd be gone too. Curse of the Mid-Major.

[akronad]

Unless something really strange happens, Christian to TCU, Geno Ford to coach Can't & Jerry Laria, now at Firestone HS to be one of Geno's asst. coaches.Christian has wanted to get out of Can't the last 2-3 years, so his leaving does not come as a surprise to me. Geno was brought back specifically to be groomed as the next head coach, & Jerry and Geno are very good friends.As a true Zips fan, I hope it to be rough sailing for Can't the next couple of years. But, don't underestimate Geno, he really knows his basketball and will be a very good coach.

[skip-zip]

For a number of reasons, including some recent information I had gathered from people I know, I really thought this was the year Christain would leave. I just thought he would go to a bigger school. And wasn't the Rhode Island job in the mix?

[ziplock]

Word has it that they will be paying him $400-700k. TCU recently came into a huge gift to the BBall program and there will be new facilities.Chances are, if KD could get akron to the level and consistency of Can't and was offered another position, he'd be gone too. Curse of the Mid-Major.

WKYC-TV say that Christian will earm between $600 and $800 K annually. I am sure that the top end includes incentives. No matter how any of us feel about him, he really maintained the level of Waters and Heath (although Heath's one year was, in my view, an anomaly from the Waters tears). He brought some exposure to the MAC, although that did not translate into multi-bids in the NCAA tourney.And all the talk about loyalty aside, if KD continues on his path, he may be next! We need to ramp up his salary and the committment to the basketball program and hope that has an impact on his future decisions about Akron. In the face of an increase in salary by, literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars, it has to tempt any of us, particularly an innovative, coach in a winning program, irrespective of the issue of loyalty.Go Zips!!

[w00t]

I'm not surprised Christian left, but I am surprised he left to coach at a school like TCU. The Mountain West does routinely get two bids to the tournament though, so I guess it is a step up conference-wise.Anyway, here's hoping this bodes poorly for the future of Can't's basketball program.

[akronad]

I agree, that we need to keep KD, which means we need to ramp up his salary. I see only a few opitons in that area. First, and foremost, we need to sell-out the JAR every game. This generates revenue. Not only from the ticket sales, but also form parking, concessions,souvenirs, etc. However, with the limited amount of seating at the JAR this will not help entirely. The U needs to budget more money to the program. This would hopefully come in the way of endowments, the Z Club or just plain old donations. We, alumni & students, collectively, have to come up with the ways to fund this endeavor. And the more ideas, the better!!

[Zip Watcher]

I think you kindof had to interpret the JUCO / Transfer approach he's been taking as an indication of a plan to move on sooner rather than later. So this doesn't surprise me at all. I do think the move to TCU is a bit surprising, given the rumored interest of Oregon State and Providence.It probably means he wasn't really on the inside track for either of those gigs. And he probably didn't want to wait for the Xavier job to open up. But with a Zip running the show at Xavier, or at least heavily involved .. maybe he wasn't hot on their list either.Good luck to Jimmy C. I'll say one thing: While I'm not a fan of the 2 year player approach, and much prefer the stability and growth we get to watch with KD's approach, you have to admit that Jimmy was a master at getting the chemistry to come together mid-January. It seems like the past 3 years, the wheels have been wobbling a little coming out of Christmas .. and then all of a sudden, he'd find the combination and ride it to the top of the MAC. One time could have been an accident .. but 3 straight .. no the guy has figured out how to mesh differing personalities.Geno being the coach at Can't State has to frost the asses at bobcatattack .. but would Geno go back to the place that ditched coach Hunter? I wonder if the firing of Hunter ultimately hurts OU in the long haul. There are some young rising coaches around (Geno, Boals ..) who might think twice about going back to Athens.Ultimately, I'm happy we've got our guy. Wouldn't trade him for anyone.Go Zips.

[plowerman78]

I guess when ur team scores 10 points in the first half of a ncaa game, and one of your starters blows a .13 and only gets suspended for 1 game, I would leave out west too. Have fun in the middle of nowhere Jim, I'll miss you stomping your feet on my floor and throwing fits on the sidelines.

[Captain Kangaroo]

I guess when ur team scores 10 points in the first half of a ncaa game, and one of your starters blows a .13 and only gets suspended for 1 game, I would leave out west too. Have fun in the middle of nowhere Jim, I'll miss you stomping your feet on my floor and throwing fits on the sidelines.

You can judge him by one half of one game, and one mistake by one player...or by the body of his work:Six 20-win seasons. 3 NIT's. Two NCAA's.The guy can coach. And whomever takes over for him in 2008-9 will have a loaded roster. K.e.n.t. isn't going anywhere.

[plowerman78]

u took the post in the wrong way, jim is a great coach dont get me wrong there, the guy can flat out coach. Heck he has done something that keith has yet to do and thats make it to the ncaa tournament. I was more making fun of Can't then jim.

[Quickzips]

I can't figure this one out to be quite honest. It really seems like Christian just went for the dough and the promise of better facilities. Sure the Mountain West is a better conference than the MAC, but TCU finished 7th out of 9 teams in the conference w/ a sub-.500 record both overall and in conference. They're focus is primarily on football. They haven't had a winning season since '04-'05. They are in a conference with teams like BYU, UNLV and New Mexico that have pretty well established basketball programs that will be difficult to overcome. Quite frankly it seems as if this move was Jim Christian throwing up the white flag and surrendering that he's taken Can't as far as he can get them. Can't's gonna have some problems over the next couple of years. This is where that JUCO recruiting strategy hurts. Whoever the new coach is is going to have to either keep up with the JUCO route where he may not have quite the eye and the connections Christian did or he's going to have to move to a traditional high school recruiting strategy and risk having a couple year gap in there where the last of Christians JUCO's are gone and the new high schoolers are still developing.Very interesting.

[skip-zip]

I haven't seen the numbers....but isn't this a money thing?headaviatorrowdie...your post is hilarious.I even heard someone speak of the crazy amount of money they spent on their trip to the tournament, only to get virtually eliminated in the first 5 minutes of the first game. If that is not a sign that a coach is about to leave for greener pastures, I don't know what is.