I thought this was worth a Bunker post.
I used to love women's basketball. Nell Fortner's success here, and Nell herself in many ways, opened my eyes to the sport. I really enjoyed watching DeWanna and Whitney B. and Blanche A. and all those teams compete. They were good. They were/are nice people. They were easy to appreciate — at least for me. I really enjoyed watching them win.
Then Nell left, the teams regressed and now Auburn isn't much of anything in the sport. I don't care anymore. I think a lot of casuals like me feel the same way.
Enter Larry Vickers.
I thought the idea of Auburn hiring a coach directly from Norfolk State was insane the first time I heard it. I looked into Vickers, though, and I liked what I found. He's a chatty, proud, outspoken dude who loves the game. He played at NSU. He coached with the men's team at NSU. He then took over the women's program and, after a few years of just so-so results, turned them into a powerhouse. Yes, it's Norfolk State. But he's at Norfolk State with a Norfolk State recruiting budget. He's competing against the rest of the MEAC — and Vickers clearly has figured something out. He's been dominating his league for three years now. They went undefeated in conference play this season.
Is this an underwhelming hire? Time will tell on this one.
Here's why I think it's actually a smart gamble: John Cohen is not risking much but he's taking a chance on a very intriguing person. This Auburn program is not good. It'll take someone special to attract some good players out of the portal and add some good HS talent to the personnel mixture. Vickers has dominated at his level. He's recruited well. He's coached well. He's likable.
Auburn won't be paying him a ton of money. I'm not even sure Auburn will be offering him much in the way of financial support — certainly not much (if anything) above what Johnnie Harris had. But maybe that's a good thing. Vickers is coming from a much lower station in terms of funding and national prestige. He'll appreciate the relative wealth and support Auburn provides.
If he gets Auburn back into the SEC's top half, then let's have some conversations about augmenting the budget.
If he doesn't get that done, well, you haven't lost much.
In these early days of NIL, this seems like a prudent gamble. It's odd to think that Auburn recognizes a deficiency and doesn't do everything possible to rectify it, but is that really what Cohen is doing here? Is he ignoring it? Or is he attacking the problem in a different way?
If it works, ADs from coast to coast will consider Cohen a genius. If it fails, meh, Cohen's commitment to women's basketball looks mostly the same as everyone else not at South Carolina, UConn, LSU, Southern Cal, UCLA.
