After simply 4 seasons on the job, Johnnie Harris is out at Auburn, marking the second head coach opening within the Southeastern Convention as March Insanity approaches.
A number of sources instructed SB Nation that the writing was on the wall for Harris when John Cohen was employed because the athletic director a number of years in the past and didn’t reward her with a contract extension for making the NCAA Match final season, the Tigers’ first journey to the large dance since 2019. Regardless of working at Mississippi State as an assistant coach for eight years and wanting the pinnacle job when Vic Schaefer left for Texas in 2020, Cohen didn’t promote Harris to when he was beforehand the AD in Starkville.
The outcomes on the courtroom made the choice simpler for Cohen to dump Harris. Regardless of a First 4 look for Auburn final season, Harris by no means had a profitable file in SEC play throughout her 4 seasons there. General, she was 58-63.
To rent a coach higher than Harris although, Auburn will probably need to open its pockets a bit wider. In accordance to USA At present, Harris was the second-lowest paid coach within the SEC final 12 months (an information pool that excludes Vanderbilt’s Shea Ralph, since her personal faculty wage shouldn’t be public).
Auburn has had some huge moments of success in girls’s basketball, none larger than the late Nineteen Eighties and early Nineties when it appeared in three consecutive nationwide title video games, shedding every one. Auburn groups coached by Joe Ciampi went to 6 Elite Eights and gained 4 SEC Match titles. Nell Fortner had success there within the 2000s too, profitable an everyday season SEC title with DeWanna Bonner main the way in which. Terri Williams-Flournoy went to 3 NCAA Tournaments in 9 seasons within the 2010s.
However now, Auburn must be rebuilt.
Right here’s a number of folks that Cohen would possibly name for the job.
Sam Purcell
The final time Cohen needed to rent a girls’s basketball coach — at Mississippi State in 2022 — he referred to as Purcell, who had beforehand been one among Jeff Walz’s prime lieutenants at Louisville and helped the Cardinals make two journeys to the Last 4. Purcell has accomplished nicely at Mississippi State, at the moment having fun with his third straight season of at the very least 20 wins and eyeing his second NCAA Match berth. We’ve seen SEC coaches leap from one faculty to a different inside the league earlier than in lots of sports activities, together with girls’s faculty basketball. Most lately, Joni Taylor went from Georgia to Texas A&M in 2022. Except for Purcell beforehand having a working relationship with Cohen, it’s price noting that he’s a graduate of Auburn and bought his begin in teaching there as a video coordinator. Purcell’s buyout at Mississippi State is slightly below $1 million.
Oh, and the man who took Auburn to 3 Last Fours a number of many years in the past? That’s Purcell’s father-in-law.
Carly Thibault-DuDonis
It’s a close to assure that Cohen will name Thibault-DuDonis in some unspecified time in the future this month, and he gained’t be the one Energy 4 athletic director doing so. One of many quickest rising stars in teaching circles within the sport, the 33-year-old has rapidly established Fairfield as a mid-major energy, going 70-20 there in three seasons. Along with making the NCAA Match final 12 months, she’s led the Stags to victories over main packages in Arkansas, Wake Forest, Villanova, Rutgers and St. John’s. The daughter of three-time WNBA Coach of the 12 months Mike Thibault, she was additionally an assistant underneath Schaefer at Mississippi State whereas Cohen was the AD there. The Bulldogs appeared within the nationwide title sport in each of her seasons on Schaefer’s employees.
This is able to be fairly the step up for Roussell, who has been voted as Coach of the 12 months within the Atlantic 10 in back-to-back seasons now and has Richmond able to land a uncommon at-large berth within the NCAA Match, ought to the Spiders falter within the convention tourney. Rousell has been a winner in every single place he’s been, from the Division III ranks in Chicago, to Bucknell and now Richmond. 11 of his groups — quickly to be 12 — have performed in postseason tournaments since he first turned a head coach 20 seasons in the past. Auburn may do a lot worse than hiring Roussell.