Billy Kennedy to Texas A&M

[Thompson]

There will be a press conference on Monday, and it looks like Billy Kennedy will be announced as the new coach.

http://twitter.com/#!/BrentZwerneman

Here's the same article about Kennedy from another thread.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/columnists/buck_harvey/article/Even-without-buzz-Aggies-have-options-1376398.php

Byrne has a pretty good track record to this point, so hopefully this will be a good hire. Also, in football news, Bralon Addison committed to join his buddies Matt Davis and Trey Williams at A&M.

[Thompson]

%#@*! Now reports are that they're still going to interview Ben Jacobson from Northern Iowa, but at this point Kennedy is the frontrunner. Monday can't get here fast enough.

[yavozerb]

Weird, cause Kennedy just signed a 1yr contract days ago..

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110511/SPORTS12/305110072/Murray-State-coach-

[Thompson]

Weird, cause Kennedy just signed a 1yr contract days ago..


That was likely before he was contacted about the A&M job, and in any case the buyout for a mid-major is probably less than $100,000 anyway.

According to Liucci, Kennedy has been named the coach. Our long national nightmare is over.

http://twitter.com/#!/billyliucci

[yavozerb]

Not a bad get....Hopefully he can keep putting a competitive team on the floor.

[rjv]

i like this hire. kennedy will be a better recruiter than turgeon imho.

[coyotes_geek]

i like this hire. kennedy will be a better recruiter than turgeon imho.

Same here. Good hire.

I thought the E-N had a good piece today about how A&M, Kennedy & Turgeon all come out of this as winners.

[SuperDave]

He is a former part-time scout for the Spurs, and continues to be friends with RC and Pop, by the way. RC gave a nice testimonial for him.

I think it's a good hire and great fit, especially under the circumstances with the difficult timing. A&M is his dream job, which is a nice plus.

He needs to get a staff in place and hit the ground running in recruiting. While I appreciate the job Turge did overall in solidifying the program as legit and nationally competitive, our current recruiting success was lacking. We have some ground to make up in the 2012 class, and we don't have much time to do it.

[Thompson]

I would be surprised if we landed anyone of note in the 2012 class. Our new coach is coming in late in the year, and any inroads that Turgeon made with recruits (not many, apparently) are probably gone with him. It takes time to develop some sort of relationship with recruits that is strong enough to bring them to your school; it will probably take a year or two of effort before we see any big returns (any success over this next year will make his sales pitch a lot more convincing though).

[DesignatedT]

I like the hire. Seems like a good fit and hearing him talk about A&M being a "destination job" and dream job for him is comforting to hear. Would also be nice to see a better offense next season.

As for 2012 we might be able to draw some interest to J-Michael Reese and a couple others. Reese would be a huge get if we could somehow land the kid. There were some interesting twitter conversations going on between J-Mychael and Bralon Addison which indicates that Reese is still interested somewhat.

[Thompson]

Buford, who played briefly at A&M in the late 1970s under Shelby Metcalf, said this week that he's long admired Kennedy's approach to the game.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/texasam/7571091.html#ixzz1MrhRYMCt

Anyone else know that Buford played at A&M? I'd never heard that before.

[rjv]

Buford, who played briefly at A&M in the late 1970s under Shelby Metcalf, said this week that he's long admired Kennedy's approach to the game.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/college/texasam/7571091.html#ixzz1MrhRYMCt

Anyone else know that Buford played at A&M? I'd never heard that before.

yeah i had seen that before. he never really played from what i hear and wound up somewhere else i believe.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

I would be surprised if we landed anyone of note in the 2012 class. Our new coach is coming in late in the year, and any inroads that Turgeon made with recruits (not many, apparently) are probably gone with him. It takes time to develop some sort of relationship with recruits that is strong enough to bring them to your school; it will probably take a year or two of effort before we see any big returns (any success over this next year will make his sales pitch a lot more convincing though).

He just hired Glynn Cyprien away from Memphis. Guy is a crazy good recruiter. I think we'll still come out alright in 2012, Cyprien was in on some very good guys already, just has to change the point of the sales pitch.

[Thompson]

He just hired Glynn Cyprien away from Memphis. Guy is a crazy good recruiter. I think we'll still come out alright in 2012, Cyprien was in on some very good guys already, just has to change the point of the sales pitch.

Yeah, I saw that; Cyprien is apparently one of the top ten recruiters in the nation. We might see some talent sooner than I thought.