Cincinnati Basketball: 5 coaching replacements for Mick Cronin
By Joey Loose
3. Nick Van Exel (Memphis Grizzlies assistant)
Van Exel is a former NBA guard who played under Bob Huggins at Cincinnati back in the early 90’s. He helped lead this team to the Elite Eight in 1993 and could be the man to coach the program back to that point. He’s spent the last ten years in coaching, mostly in the NBA, but does have brief experience as an assistant at Texas Southern.
He was drafted by the Lakers in the second round in 1993 and spent thirteen years playing in the NBA. Van Exel was an All-Star with the Lakers in 1998 before jumping around to the Nuggets, Mavericks, Warriors, Trail Blazers, and Spurs. As a coach, he’s spent the last three years on the Grizzlies staff while also spending time with the Hawks and Bucks. He spent one season as head coach of the Texas Legends of the G-League, though this remains his only head coaching experience.
There’s been a recent trend in college basketball of hiring NBA players who may not necessarily have a wealth of coaching experience, especially at the college level. Jerry Stackhouse was just hired at Vanderbilt based on his experience in the G-League while Patrick Ewing and Penny Hardaway are beginning to rebuild their alma maters. On the other side, Chris Mullin’s time at St. John’s ended very unceremoniously, proof that this experiment doesn’t always work out.
However, Van Exel’s hiring would bring excitement to the Bearcats. Having someone with considerable NBA experience on the sidelines cannot be underrated, especially as a recruiter. While it remains to be seen how Van Exel would fare as a college coach, this would be a pretty exciting hire. Van Exel returning to his alma mater and leading the team to greater heights is alluring, but buyers beware: it could also crash and burn like Mullin with the Red Storm.