Tulane should consider past success in next basketball hire

NEW ORLEANS – Strike four.

That’s one too many strikes in baseball, but since Perry Clark left Tulane’s basketball program in the summer of 2000 to accept the same post at the University of Miami, Green Wave officials have swung and missed four times in trying to replace him.

Now they step in the batter’s box for swing number five, following the announcement Saturday of Mike Dunleavy Sr.’s departure after three seasons, the last of which was a 4-27 debacle that ended with 21 consecutive losses.

Those previous swings have gone in all kinds of directions – assistants from major programs (Shawn Finney, Dave Dickerson), head coaches from smaller programs (Ed Conroy) and outside-the-box choices (Dunleavy, with his NBA pedigree).

In the century-plus history of the Tulane program, there are only two eras of sustained success – the post-World War II years under Cliff Wells, when the Green Wave was the second-best program in the Southeastern Conference behind Kentucky, and the 1990s under Clark, when it made seven postseason appearances in a nine-year span.

If sustaining success has been so difficult, why not reach back into the pedigree of the most recent success?

In case you have forgotten, here’s what Tulane did in a six-year run under Clark from 1992-97: NCAA, NCAA, NIT, NCAA, NIT, NIT. Clark’s final team in 2000 added another NIT trip for good measure.

Since then, the only postseason trips have been a couple of pay-for-play appearances under Conroy.

Clark is still going strong at age 67, still coaching on Frank Martin’s staff at South Carolina, where two years ago this month, the Gamecocks made a magical postseason run to the Final Four.

The starting point guard on Tulane’s first NCAA team, Greg Gary, is a top assistant at Purdue, which will punch its fifth straight ticket to the Big Dance on Sunday.

Two of the stars of “The Posse,” Tulane’s famous bench in the early 1990s, are also coaching on the Division I level. Carlin Hartman is an assistant at Oklahoma, which is likely headed back to the NCAAs as well. Kim Lewis is an assistant at Richmond.

Does Dannen already have an idea of where the search is heading? Any athletic director worth his salt, at any given time, has a short list of coaches he would hire in each of his or her sports – because you never know when you may have to make a hire. Multiple reports have linked former Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy to the job.

There is no clear-cut formula to delivering success. If there was, everyone would just plug and play. Instead, it’s all about trying to find the right fit with your program and letting that person, and his staff, go to work.

For what it’s worth, Saturday marks the 24-year anniversary of Tulane’s last NCAA Tournament victory.

There are a few people on coaching staffs out there who know all about that unprecedented run of success, both on the court and in fan interest. If you were in attendance Uptown for a Tulane basketball game during the 1990s, you know what an amazing home-court atmosphere Tulane had.

In the last 19 years, that support – and relevance – has slowly deteriorated.

It’s all the more reason that Tulane should wander back down the roads of its past before selecting its next men’s basketball coach.

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