Conference tournaments are underway
In the first games of conference tournament action, Colgate knocked off Navy 57-51 and Lafayette knocked off the mighty Greyhounds of Loyola (MD) 84-71. The Atlantic Sun and Horizon League kick action off tomorrow.
Navy made me think of Ed DeChellis. Does anyone know why he left Penn State for Navy following a year where they made the NCAA Tournament? That decision always baffled me. I know Penn State is a horrible Big Ten job, but it can't be worse than Navy, can it?
I thought, all things considered, Ed DeChellis did about as good of job as anyone could. Yeah, at Harvard being a good recruiter is enough to win the Ivy. At Michigan and in the Big Ten, that was never enough. The players never improved, and his offensive sets were particularly brutal.
His team made the tournament because of Talor Battle and Jeff Brooks. He wasn't going to have a winning season for a few years and would probably have gotten fired, so his options were Navy now or a random mid-major later.
Unless you really like Annapolis (understandable), or something else about service academies is a real draw (also understandable), I'd absolutely rather coach at the random mid-major. Recruiting to Navy must be downright impossible. Hard enough for football, but with football it's the NFL or bust and for about 90% of football recruits, they know they're not going on past college. Practically anyone who's good enough to play basketball in D-I has legitimate hopes of being good enough to go pro somewhere around the world.
and Navy won 9 games total this year. I don't know why PSU doesn't invest in their basketball program. It reminds me of Michigan basketball 2000-2010. No one goes and they don't hire big time coaches.
I think this has to be the only explanation for why he left. The job seems a little like Michigan circa 2005 like you said, except with a complete lack of any previous fan support, winning tradition, etc.
(LINK) - ESPN has the comprehensive bracket information by conference on this page. Simply click on the link for the appropriate conference to see their bracket as it stands right now.
As the OP mentioned the Horizon League and that has a couple local representatives here in SE Michigan, Detroit plays Milwaukee tonight at 7 PM, with Valparaiso facing off against UI-Chicago about an hour later. In their other bracket, Oakland gets Youngstown State, with the winner of that game advancing to play Wright State.