Catching up: Hipsher up for head coach jobs?

Greetings from New Orleans, where I'm covering the women's basketball regional games here, first with Louisville-North Carolina and then Oklahoma State-LSU this afternoon. Still lots going on back in Tampa, so I'll do my best to cover things from here and keep you guys posted ...

-- First, basketball assistant Dan Hipsher, formerly a head coach at Stetson and Akron, is in the same position as was another USF assistant Dan -- football's McCarney -- in that he'll be considered for a number of openings that would give him his own team again. It looks like the first team that will interview him is Jacksonville State in Alabama -- the Anniston Star, whose site requires a subscription (unusual among newspaper sites these days), reports that Hipsher is among nine candidates and will be among the first interviewed. He confirmed his interest in the job to the newspaper.

Given his history in Ohio, both at Akron and in nine seasons as an assistant at Dayton, I wouldn't be surprised if his name comes up at Toledo as well. One name that has been mentioned there is former Stan Heath assistant Oronde Taliaferro, who was on Heath's staff at Arkansas but joined the staff at Oklahoma last season. Taliaferro would also make sense at Detroit.

-- Big win for USF baseball last night, with freshman Randy Fontanez shutting down Georgetown, holding the Hoyas to four hits in eight innings in a 2-1 win. It's worth noting that the Hoyas' lone run was scored by Sean Baumann, brother of USF reserve (and Yankee grand slammer) Eric Baumann.

Something else we'll look into: Fontanez took the Friday night start normally held by senior Daniel Thomas, who was not scheduled to pitch this weekend despite having no injuries. It's the second time Thomas has gotten a weekend off in the past four weekends.

It's incredible how much of an impact Lelo Prado has gotten from first-year Bulls -- less than a third of his starting lineup this season has been players who were at USF last season. Only two regular hitters -- Joey Angelberger and Addison Maruszak -- were Bulls before this season; Mike Consolmagno and Charles Cleveland have combined for a starter's at-bats, but are hitting .213 and .154 on the year.

-- With this new contract, where would you rank Jim Leavitt among the Big East football coaches? I'm guessing not many of you went as low as fifth, which is what Tom Dienhart of the Sporting News thinks in his offseason ranking of the league's eight coaches. Dienhart calls him "kooky," then writes that Leavitt "can coach you out of your coach's shorts with an unmatched package of emotion and energy." Given the prose, I guess he just really likes the top four coaches in his rankings. Syracuse's Greg Robinson can just be excited not to be last on the list, which goes to West Virginia's Bill Stewart.

Comments

[AT]

HAHA "kooky" thats what I love about Leavitt. I remember that ranking a couple years ago, that had him 7th in the Big East and had another coach say "he's crazy". They say that like its a bad thing? And I dont understand how Robinson is ranked ahead of anyone, Cuse has the talent of a 1-AA team.
Hispher seems like a good assistant, I'd hate to see him leave after just one year.

[JoeB]

Great game by Fontanez last night. I would be surprised if that performance didn't earn him Big East Pitcher of the Week honors. That lone run he gave up was unearned too. A 2B error by Brandin Smith and a wild pitch allowed the run to score. Without that run its a shutout.

[Ari Hinkelberger]

Didn't Bill Stewart coach a West Va team to the Fiesta Bowl title and demolished Bob Stoops.

I think Greg Robinson is a safe 8th.

All the coaches in the Big East are actually pretty good. Even Wanny at Pitt has his moments.

[Brian]

Wanny should just recruit and hope his assistants can handle the X's and O's. As much talent as they have had go through that program he has managed to keep them anchored as a mediocre program with considerable effort.

[ucf rocks]

GOL is better than any coach in the big Least. And by the way I told you foolish Bulls fans that CUSA was a better basketball conferense than the Big East. look at Memphis. I also read on ucfsports.com that 24k is a first round pick.

[Dave W]

GA- ethics questions: With a rare Friday night free of work, should a USF fan have attended the baseball game, or gone out to watch the tournament? I did the latter; it appears as though I should have been at the baseball game (I probably would've jinxed them, so maybe I made the right choice).

Losing any assistant can hurt in the middle of a recruiting period, especially one as active as ours. Hopefully, Hipsher will stay for another season to provide some continuity.

[G.A.]

Dave, tough call. I'm in New Orleans, so my decision was easier.

I'll be surprised if Kevin Smith is a first-round pick. There's only two rounds on Saturday now, so he is more likely to be a second-day pick.

[Ari Hinkelberger]

Greg,

You should do a story on Stehen Curry and how he begged BEGGED Seth Greenberg for a chance to pay at Va Tech. He wanted to follow his old man Dell Curry to play at VA Tech and Seth Greenberg offered him the chance to "walk-on."

Could be the biggest recruiting blunder in decades.

Kid is just flat out lighting teams up.

Greenberg is complaing he didnt' make the tourney, but he told the kid who leads the NCAA Tournament in scoring - and now plays for a team in the Elite 8 - that he could "walk-on."

Hilarioius.

[G.A.]

Hilarioius indeed. Lots of people missed on Curry -- I'd give Greenberg credit if he was aware of him more than a year ago, which I can't say ...

[ucfrocks]

Boy, it is funny that Memphis is in the C-USA isn't it? Memphis is showing the world how GREAT C-USA is and how far USF has to climb. Our facilities are playing a difference in recruiting and this will be a good showing when we kick the snot out of you guys in baseball. Coach O'Leary has our date set at Brighthouse and we will show the country on ESPN how great our school is to yours. Go Knights!!!

[ucfsucks]

hilarious, cdoa has one good team and the moron thinks cdoa is a great conference. the delusion in orlando continues

[xr4ti_007]

Get your head out of your backside you UCF honk. They only a comment about CUSA is how weak the competition is for Memphis and how they have to schedule the toughest non-conference schedule in the country to get respect. How many teams from C-DOA have made the tourney the last few years that aren't named Memphis? Zero, zip, nada! Since the realignment of the conference, the Tigers have gone 16-1, 19-0 & 19-0 with an average margin of victory around 15 ppg! 54-1, how great is that competition? The Memphis bench would give them a better game than any team in that conference. How does it feel to be the fifth best team in a one-team conference?

[xr4ti_007]

UCF hasn't had back to back winning seasons since 19...? They enter the season with little depth at RB. While else would O'Liar be giving Smith the ball 40 times a game and up by 3 TD's against the 112th ranked defense? The QB’s are awful. Look at Israel’s numbers against Texas, USF & MSU. If they had any talent or depth they would have benched that stiff and at least got some one else some PT. I saw Greco running for his life at RJS, and he barely played the rest of the season. Your best O-linemen graduated, you lost two more D-linemen and a D-coordinator. You'll probably win six games in a conference rated behind the CAA with the likes of Delaware, James Madison, and UMass. We'll see at you at the high school field you call a stadium. Aluminum bleachers, exposed wire supports on I-beam trusses, and a faux brick façade? At least you have plenty of water fountains…oops!

[Ken]

Guys, that's all so easy, but it encourages them just the same. Let it go and maybe they'll go away.