Pat Knight Back in the Saddle

Per Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports, former Texas Tech coach Pat Knight has been hired by Lamar University to be its next basketball coach.  This is absolutely shocking.  If you had told me Pat Knight would be back in the coaching circuit this fast, I would have laughed.  To be clear Lamar is a definite step down--Big 12>>Southland--but I'm still surprised Knight was given the opportunity to coach over a top assistant somewhere.

One of the biggest problems with coaching searches is the tendency to recycle old head coaches (that don't have a history of success) instead of going after top assistants looking for their first shot (i.e. Josh Pastner).  There are tons of guys who would kill to get their first chance (even if it was coaching in the Southland) and probably could do a really good job.  I'd also like to point out the fact that Knight was hired to be a head coach while Jeff Capel is being rumored as a candidate for top assistant at Missouri.

But Knight's hiring isn't the weirdest news involving the Knights of college basketball.  It was rumored last week that the General, Bob Knight is interested in taking the UNLV coaching job.  Apparently UNLV is in major financial trouble, so I wouldn't expect to see Bob Knight gracing any press conferences in Las Vegas anytime soon (you could also point out Knight's inability to scout players effectively during the last part of his career would make him an ineffective head coach in the one-and-done age).  Still, I'm not sure anyone really foresaw the General trying to make the jump back into coaching.

Regardless, we at Big 12 Hoops wish Pat Knight only success.