UAB Basketball: Why Andy Kennedy is the perfect hire for the Blazers

According to reports, Andy Kennedy will be returning to UAB Basketball to become the Conference USA school’s new basketball coach.

For Andy Kennedy, coaching UAB Basketball is a homecoming. It’s not everyday a coach can return to the place where he both played and served as an assistant, but it seems Kennedy is going to get that opportunity ahead of the 2020-21 season.

UAB is set to hire Kennedy as their new coach. The news comes less than a week after the school fired Robert Ehsan, who served as an assistant with the Blazers for four years before serving in the head coach role for the last four. Ehsan went 76-57 and never finished with a losing record, but his teams also never went to the NCAA Tournament or NIT.

Kennedy has spent the past two years serving as a broadcaster with the SEC Network. Prior to that, however, he served as the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels for 12 seasons. He went 245-156 during his tenure, only finishing with a losing season when he resigned during his final year. He may very well be the greatest coach the Rebels have ever had.

His fit in Birmingham should be ideal. For starters, he might be the most established head coach to ever take over at UAB during this stage of his career. Gene Bartow spent a couple of years at UCLA before taking over with the Blazers and Mike Davis flamed out at Indiana before heading to Birmingham, but nobody with Kennedy’s track record has taken over the job before.

Kennedy is also an alum of the school, which should make it easier to build excitement around the program. He actually didn’t begin his collegiate career with the Blazers, starting with the NC State Wolfpack instead. But after transferring to UAB, he averaged 18.8 points per game during his last three seasons, becoming a star.

Recruiting will be a big part of Kennedy’s job at UAB and Ehsan was kind enough to give him a head start. The team’s only signed letter of intent for the Class of 2020 comes from power forward Rongie Gordon, but according to 247 Sports, that’s enough to make it Conference USA’s best recruiting class so far. Gordon was recruited by several SEC schools (including Ole Miss, ironically), making it Kennedy’s job to make sure he doesn’t break his commitment with the coaching change.

Kennedy finished with a top-five SEC class just twice during his Ole Miss tenure, generally finishing in the bottom half of the conference. He did develop Terence Davis into a legitimate NBA player, though, so he has that going for him.

UAB should also be in line for a decent season after a 9-9 C-USA campaign. Leading scorer Tavin Lovan is returning and should be ready to emerge as a top-five C-USA player. In fact, the team’s top three scorers should all be back, including C-USA All-Freshman performer Jalen Benjamin (11.9 points per game). There’s no reason the Blazers can’t secure a top-four conference finish in 2020-21.

Time will tell if Kennedy sees the end of the six-year contract he’s getting from UAB. If he doesn’t, it might be because he gets another shot at a major conference job. For now, however, the Blazers appear to have made a home run hire.