It’s been an eventful week in women’s college basketball, so much that we had to do another notebook.
I wasn’t planning on doing another notebook this week (the first one ran Wednesday), but a lot has happened.
- First, the good news: The SEC schedule will (finally) be released Friday morning at 10:00 am. I’ll have a full breakdown of the schedule later in the day.
- Now, the big news: Matthew Mitchell retired as Kentucky’s coach Thursday night. Mitchell cited medical issues as the reason for his decision. Mitchell fell while on vacation following last season. He was initially diagnosed with a concussion, but ended up requiring brain surgery to treat bleeding in his brain. He was expected to make a full recovery, but it appears the effects have lingered and Mitchell felt it was best to resign his position.
Mitchell coached Kentucky for 13 years, becoming the Wildcats’ all-time winningest coach. He won the SEC regular season championship in 2012 and took Kentucky to three Elite Eights. The Wildcats were a perennial top ten program in the first half of the 2010s. A rocky period followed, with numerous players and coaches leaving the program. That led to Mitchell’s contract being “extended” - a move that actually converted a significant amount of his salary to bonuses, which is never a good sign. His only losing season, a 15-17 campaign in 2017-18 followed, and Mitchell seemed to be on the hot seat. But he fixed whatever had been wrong with the program and got Kentucky back into the top 25. Signing Rhyne Howard had a lot to do with that, but Kentucky has also stabilized around her.
Associate head coach Kyra Elzy takes over as the interim head coach. Elzy played at Tennessee from 1996-2001, where Mitchell was a graduate assistant from 1999-2000. Her coaching career began at Kansas, and then she was part of Mitchell's early run at Kentucky. She went back to Tennessee for four years before returning to Kentucky in 2016. Elzy was credited with rebuilding Kentucky’s roster, including bringing Howard into the fold. Elzy has also been credited with Kentucky’s success in luring transfers like Chasity Patterson, Dre'una Edwards, and Jazmine Massengill to Lexington.
Howard is a preseason All-American and the defending SEC Player of the Year. Kentucky was expected to be very good this season, but the question was whether they could find enough help for Howard. As good as she is, Kentucky was a notch below the conference elite last season in part because too often the offense stood around watching Howard’s heroics. Mitchell’s departure doesn’t change any of that.
It’s worth noting that Mitchell’s announcement came after Kentucky’s only 2021 recruit, point guard Jada Walker, signed her letter of intent. To my knowledge, Walker has not responded to Mitchell’s announcement.
As for who will permanently replace Mitchell, the job would seem to be Elzy’s to lose. She has experience with the program, recruiting chops, and a whole season to audition. Additionally, she figures to be significantly cheaper than Mitchell. That matters in a pandemic economy, and after Kentucky arguably overpaid Mitchell. Kelzy’s contract, which expires following this season, pays her $275,00 per season plus bonuses for tournament performance. It is unknown if she will get a raise for serving as the interim head coach.
- Besides what it means for Kentucky, Mitchell’s retirement could mark a sort of changing of the guard in the SEC. By almost any measure, the top tier of the SEC is currently composed of South Carolina, Texas A&M, Mississippi State, and Kentucky (I acknowledge Mike Neighbors and Arkansas will have some input, and historically Tennessee is in a class of its own). They have the wins, the talent, and not surprisingly, they had the four highest-paid coaches in the league last season. Now, two of those coaches are gone.
Schaefer was paid slightly more than Staley, but they were both in the range of $1.5-1.6 million annually. Mitchell was third, making about $1.26 million per season. Blair makes only $800,000 per year, a massive discount for a national championship coach. (Salaries don’t take into account any COVID-related pay-cuts.)
Mitchell’s 13-season tenure was second only to Gary Blair’s 17 at Texas A&M, and technically he was the longest tenured SEC coach (Blair’s first nine seasons were in the Big 12). Now Staley, who was hired a year after Mitchell, has those distinctions. Schaefer, a Texas native, spent eight seasons in Starkville. It was widely speculated that he was waiting for Blair, his mentor, to retire so he could take over at Texas A&M. But Blair, who is 75, apparently isn’t planning on hanging it up anytime soon (and count me among those who believe women’s basketball is better with Gary Blair involved), so Schaefer went for the next best thing and headed to Austin.
That leaves Blair and Staley, and Blair would be the first to tell you he is in Staley’s shadow. Her winning record, outspokenness, support of other players and coaches, and overall visibility as the coach of the national team have firmly put her at the forefront of the SEC. And with the SEC the highest-ranked conference in the AP preseason top-25, I think the other coaches are happy with where the SEC stands.
- Elsewhere in preseason projections, Aliyah Boston was named to the AP preseason All-American team. She is joined by Rhyne Howard, guard Dana Evans of Louisville, guard Aari McDonald of Arizona, and forward Michaela Onyenwere of UCLA. Boston is the reigning national freshman of the year and Lisa Leslie Center of the Year. There will be an interview session with the five players on AP writer Doug Feinberg’s Twitter account (@DougFeinberg) Friday evening at 7:00 pm.
- On Wednesday, Brea Beal was named to the watch list for the Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year Award. She joins Zia Cooke, who was nominated for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard of the Year watch list. Boston should be named to the Lisa Leslie Center of the Year Watch List on Friday - she won the award last season. Beal’s nomination comes as a bit of a surprise. She averaged just 6.1 points and 5.4 rebounds last season, and her defense was largely overlooked. However, I’m on record as a Beal Believer - she sacrificed her offense last season, and if she can establish a reliable jump shot she can be an offensive force. She was also criminally under-recognized for her defensive prowess last season.
- Finally, point guard Raven Johnson will officially sign with South Carolina at 7:30 pm on Friday. The #2 recruit in the 2021 class will hold a virtual ceremony at her high school, Westlake High in Atlanta. Guard Bree Hall, ranked 14th in the class, officially signed Wednesday night. The other two members of the class, #3 Saniya Rivers and #4 Sania Feagin, have not announced when they will sign.
