Assistant coach Chuck Driesell will be the next head coach at The Citadel replacing Ed Conroy who took the Tulane head coaching job. Former Maryland Dave Dickerson resigned from Tulane earlier this year after five unsuccessful seasons as the head coach there. Maryland had managed to keep the assistant coaching staff intact since Michael Adams quit in the middle of the 2007-8 season. Driesell had to leave Maryland to get some head coaching experience at some point and this move was rumored for at least the last month. Given the miserly salaries that Maryland pays its assistants it isn’t surprising. With Keith Booth and Rob Ehsan the only official assistants currently (Joe Harrington does have some coaching input) that leaves the Terrapins pretty thin with game experience. Ehsan is reportedly an excellent recruiter but neither he nor Booth, who is most famous for calling the timeout that negated Grievis Vasquez’s game winning runner against Georgia Tech, add much on game day.
I’m not optimistic that the athletic department will come up with the kind of cash needed for a top notch assistant head coach ($400,000+) given that Driesell was making less than half that. It will be another test for Debbie Yow and her commitment to making the basketball program competitive on a national level.
