Yeah, I don’t know why Oats or Holtmann would leave their current gigs, especially the latter. Oats is like a very slight maybe because the potential with Maryland is really high, but Alabama is basically a giant pool of money and he’s got a good thing going right now. He keeps it up for a few more years, he could be first in line to take over a premiere job like UNC or Duke should their new coaches falter. Also, his deal is pretty recent, and as @73CAV noted, the buyout would be really big.
Guys I’m guessing they could take a run at that are maybe more realistic targets (although some would still be big reaches):
Wes Miller (Cincinnati) - literally just signed a deal there, but if they want to go big, maybe to take a swing at it
Dana Altman (Oregon) - might be hard to pry him away from Nike support but he’s got the resume and they’re in a tiny rough patch this season
Andy Enfield (USC) - going to a basketball first school could be intriguing to him, and I think has some ties to UMD
Mike White (Florida) - this would probably be a bad idea, but he’s righted Florida’s ship somewhat and might not want to stay forever given SEC landscape and his ups and downs at Florida to date
Rick Barnes (Tennessee) - solid enough record and could potentially be interested in a school that would be all about basketball
Mike Boynton (Oklahoma State) - if you don’t mind hiring recruits siblings to bring them in, could be interesting
Hope Maryland goes after someone on that list. If they want to win they should go after Kyle Smith and Craig Smith. Or the real home run would be Mark Pop if they could convince him to leave BYU,
Agreed they just should not go the retread route. Gary Williams even said they should hire an up and comer. From your original list Wes Miller would be good if they are comfortable with the idea that if he does well and Hubert struggles them Miller is going to make the jump to UNC 3-5 years from now.
Maybe it’s because I view the Terps as trash, but how is Pitino not the hire? He’s more successful than anyone else who’s been mentioned, makes a huge splash and MD doesn’t care about the moral turpitude. Well, maybe they do, but I doubt it.
I think Pitino likes hanging out in NYC though. But Pitino plus DMV recruiting would be wild. We don’t recruit there. Georgetown is dead in the water. Villanova can get one or two but that’s only because the DMV is iffy on Turgeon regardless.
Rick Pitino turns 70 next year. At the very best, he’s a short term solution. He may very well prefer to close out his career at Iona, where he appears to be enjoying some success, rather than disrupt his life by moving and attempting to rebuild another program. Were he twenty years younger, it might be a very different story.
It would be financially irresponsible for them to pay half those amounts, and they still might do it. 10 to 12 million is beyond irresponsible, and I doubt that even Maryland, with all their B1G money, would consider it.