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Barbee Hired As Coach


BZ770

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I like it. Young guy with head coaching experience who showed improvement in each of his four years at UTEP. And Barkley should be pleased with the hire.

Welcome to Auburn Coach Barbee! Here is to a long and productive career with the Tigers.

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Sources: Barbee to coach Auburn

By Andy Katz

ESPN.com

UTEP's Tony Barbee has accepted Auburn's head coaching job Wednesday, multiple sources told ESPN.com.

Barbee was one of at least four candidates interviewed for the position in Atlanta in the last two days. Barbee will replace the fired Jeff Lebo, who was let go after six seasons after failing to reach the NCAA tournament.

Barbee coached the Miners to the Conference USA regular-season title with a record of 15-1 and was named the conference coach of the year in his fourth season. Barbee (82-52) improved the Miners from 14 to 19 to 23 to 26 wins. The Miners lost the C-USA championship game to Houston and then fell as a No. 12 seed to No. 5 Butler in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Barbee was set to interview with DePaul later this week.

Barbee replaces Lebo, who got the East Carolina job last week, at a time when Auburn is upgrading its program with a brand new facility.

Barbee was coached by Kentucky coach John Calipari at UMass and now will go against his former mentor in the SEC. Barbee gives Calipari a former assistant in the league. Fellow rival Billy Donovan at Florida has two former assistants as head coaches in the SEC in John Pelphrey (Arkansas) and Anthony Grant (Alabama).

UTEP may look to former Miners assistant Tim Floyd, a former head coach at USC and a current New Orleans Hornets assistant, as well as former UTEP, Texas A&M and Kentucky coach Billy Gillispie and Sam Houston State's Bob Marlin. Arkansas assistant and former Arizona State head coach Rob Evans and Marquette assistant Tony Benford may also be in the mix.

The question for the Miners is will center Derrick Caracter return to the team or declare for the NBA draft. Caracter averaged 14.1 points and 8.1 rebounds a game after transferring from Louisville. The Miners should return junior guard Randy Culpepper, the leading scorer at 17.9 points a game.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5025730

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This appears to be a great hire.

Living in a Barbee world

Written by WarBlogEagle

It’s all but AU-fficial: Tony Barbee is your next Auburn men’s basketball coach.

As far as the quality of Auburn’s basketball program is concerned, this is terrific news. Barbee’s credentials are just about impeccable: a long apprenticeship under the most consistently successful coach in major college basketball, a reputation as a recruiter as strong or better than any second-tier coach in the country, three consecutive years of improvement at UTEP culminating in the at-large NCAA Tournament berth that’s eluded Auburn for the past seven years. Even aside from his resume, it’s (almost) nothing but good things: Barbee is a minority hire and a charismatic guy who won’t even turn 39 until this August.

All told, there wasn’t a hotter name in hoops coaching outside the power-conference ranks, and it seems just about impossible that providing a stud like Barbee with an arena like the Auburn Arena won’t result in a major, major upturn in the program’s fortunes. Many members of the Auburn punditocracy (yours truly included) have opined that Jay Jacobs needed to make the proverbial splash with this hire, to convince Auburn fans now that the Arena isn’t just a novelty act; it’s going to house some serious men’s basketball. Come for opening night, stay for the ascension of the SEC’s next hoops power. Barbee makes that sales job something other than hot air, and despite some misgivings, I can’t wait to see where Auburn ends up in two years.

Of course, the misgivings are there because where Auburn might end up is on probation. Barbee clearly deserves the benefit of the doubt for now–especially given Jacobs’ trust in him–but facts are facts: Barbee was on the bench under John Calipari at both UMass and Memphis, two schools who subsequently fell under the NCAA’s thumb as soon as Calipari exited the building. It’s more than a gamble for a program with a long history on the NCAA’s rap sheet to hire the highest-profile protege of the single biggest sleazebag in the sleazebaggiest NCAA business of them all. Barbee will have to be clean as an Ivy League whistle while he’s at Auburn, or even Jacobs’ apparent home run with the Chizik hire shouldn’t save him. If I’d been the guy in charge, I’d have wanted to to talk with Barbee and those familiar with him from his UMass and Memphis tenures, to try and find out exactly how much Barbee knew and when he knew it. There can’t be any place for cheaters any longer at Auburn, and it’s why I’d have rather pursued a guy with a longer, cleaner history of program building like Gregg Marshall or Billy Kennedy.

That Barbee rolled the dice on (and came up aces, admittedly) a known character risk like Louisville cast-off Derrick Caracter is another red flag. If Barbee’s plan for rebuilding Auburn is to take other program’s dirty laundry, no thanks.

But it’s only fair to assume that Jacobs did his due diligence, that Barbee is clean, that’s he’s going to go about things to right way–the Auburn way–and that he’s about to do what he’s been hired to do: make Auburn basketball relevant again. Short of hiring a Tubby Smith or a Mike Anderson–which was, clearly, never happening–no one looks more poised to do it in as short a period of time as Barbee.

http://www.thewareaglereader.com/2010/03/living-in-a-barbee-world/

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Good Hire. He's got stock here! WDE! Welcome to the family, Coach.

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Welcome to Coach Barbee. I hope he is the most successful basketball we have ever had. I am curious though

why we had to pay him $1.5M which is five times what he was making at UTEP and twice what we were paying Lebo. There is probably more to it but I bet he would hve come for twice his salary with incentives for big increases if he is successful.

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Welcome to Coach Barbee. I hope he is the most successful basketball we have ever had. I am curious though

why we had to pay him $1.5M which is five times what he was making at UTEP and twice what we were paying Lebo. There is probably more to it but I bet he would hve come for twice his salary with incentives for big increases if he is successful.

Because the bar wasn't being set by what he made at UTEP, it was being set by the fact that he'd have made in that neighborhood at DePaul or Iowa, the two schools most likely competing with us for his services. Word is, he was at the top of DePaul's list and they reportedly are willing to go as high as $2.25 million for the right guy.

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Really like this hire. Hopefully now the university will give the program the support that it needs when the season comes around. They have the facilities, they have what is considered one of the top, bright, up and coming coaches in the nation. Now put the marketing behind that during the season.

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I'm impressed with Barbee's NC so far. Get on the train. It's going to be a fun ride. :thumbsup:

All Aboard & War Eagle!!!

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I listened to his press conference on the radio. (SportsCall) Very impressive!

As for the blogger above that's worried about NCAA violations, the same radio show pointed out that Barbee had been gone from both UMass and Memphis at least a year before the subject violations were committed.

I'm looking forward to the next few years of Auburn basketball!

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I just listened to the interview with Rod on the Auburntigers.com site. I'm getting excited about this guy. He seems to be quite ready for the challenge.

I love that he has his sights set on Calipari. He's right. When we compete with UK with Cal, we are at the top of the SEC. When we're at the top of the SEC, we're at the top of the national scene.

War Eagle, Coach Barbee!

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