Larry Vickers would be the subsequent head coach of Auburn’s ladies’s basketball workforce, the varsity introduced Sunday.
SB Nation had reported Saturday that Vickers was within the combine to guide the Southeastern Convention program. Within the launch saying his rent, Auburn didn’t reveal any particulars about his contract.
Vickers involves Auburn after main his alma mater, Norfolk State, to a few consecutive NCAA Match appearances out of the Mid-Japanese Athletic Convention, a Division I league for traditionally Black faculties and universities. Vickers, who performed for the lads’s workforce at Norfolk State, has led the Spartans to a file of 177-99 in 9 full seasons and a part of one because the interim coach. He’s 83-13 over the past three seasons.
A No. 13 seed on this 12 months’s March Insanity, Norfolk State led No. 4 Maryland at halftime on Saturday earlier than falling 82-69. Vickers was requested about his future following the sport and mentioned, “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to my workforce. All of us have visions and objectives and — I don’t know, man. We’ll see.”
At Auburn, Vickers succeeds Johnnie Harris, who was fired earlier this month after 4 seasons on the job with a 58-63 general file. Harris made the NCAA Match final season however misplaced within the First 4. The Tigers received simply 12 video games this previous season, which included a 63-57 house loss to Vickers’ Norfolk State. She by no means completed a season with a profitable file in SEC play.
The Tigers’ teaching search, led by athletic director John Cohen with help from the search agency TurnKey, took loads of twists and turns. Initially, Auburn had the mindset of eager to make a “splashy, big-name” rent, in response to sources acquainted with the state of affairs. However when it got here all the way down to brass tacks, the Tigers didn’t need to pay an expensive buyout for a sitting Energy 4 head coach, like Arizona’s Adia Barnes.
Along with the pursuit of Barnes stalling out, Cohen additionally kicked the tires on Kellie Harper — earlier than she accepted the job at Missouri — and former Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell. Finally, the search pivoted to hiring a younger and profitable coach from the mid-major ranks who wouldn’t break Auburn’s financial institution.
“Coach Vickers has an unimaginable technical understanding of ladies’s basketball,” Cohen mentioned in an announcement. “He calls for excellence from his student-athletes, whereas fostering an atmosphere for younger ladies to succeed. His understanding of the brand new panorama of faculty athletics is spectacular. Nobody has labored tougher for a possibility like this than Coach Vickers
Vickers will definitely see a bump in pay at Auburn. Whereas Harris was the second-lowest paid SEC coach at a complete compensation of $568,000 yearly, Vickers made lower than a 3rd of that at Norfolk State with a wage of $178,627. He was voted MEAC Coach of the 12 months thrice.
The chance is a uncommon one for Vickers in that it’s extremely unusual to see a Energy 4 faculty — in nearly any sport, however actually soccer and basketball — to rent a head coach from the MEAC or SWAC, the 2 Division I HBCU leagues. For instance, Tomekia Reed had monumental success at Jackson State, profitable 5 common season titles and going to a few NCAA Tournaments in six seasons, however wasn’t introduced with the chance to make that large of a leap from job-to-job. She interviewed for Energy 4 positions, however was in the end employed at Charlotte final season. If Vickers succeeds at Auburn, it might embolden extra main convention applications to take an opportunity on good HBCU coaches.
For now, all of the openings within the SEC are stuffed — Missouri, Arkansas and Auburn — however Energy 4 head teaching jobs stay open at Houston, BYU and Wisconsin.
