Just to be clear, John Beilein at Wake Forest University would have been deadly.
Former Kansas basketball star Danny Manning was recently fired after six years as the head coach of the Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Manning went 78-111 overall and 30-80 in ACC play, which simply doesn’t cut it. When news broke that Manning would no longer be back next season as the head coach, there was one name that came up as the obvious replacement.
John Beilein. Beilein, who has had tremendous success in college basketball at West Virginia and Michigan, stepped down as the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers after a 14-40 start to the season.
Although Beilein had a tough year in Cleveland, he is universally considered one of the brightest and most respected minds in the game today. However, according to a report from 247 Sports and Evan Daniels, “the next head men’s basketball coach at Wake Forest will not be John Beilein. The Demon Deacons started conducting Zoom video interviews with potential candidates Sunday, and at least five candidates are currently in consideration.”
Beilein was not one of the candidates interviewed. It’s unclear if Wake Forest wasn’t interested or if Beliein simply removed his name from consideration. Beilein is 67 years old and coming to the end of his coaching career, but he certainly deserves another chance and can take the right team to a National Championship.
Beilein was long-considered a potential replacement for Shaka Smart at Texas, but Smart led the Longhorns to a tremendous end of the season, finishing 19-12 overall with a likely NCAA Tournament berth before the tournament was cancelled.
Wherever Beilein makes his next stop, he will be successful. Beilein has an 829-468 career record a college coach and has recorded 23 20-plus win seasons in his 41 seasons.
