The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that five people interviewed this week for the coaching job at Marist.
This week, Jose “Chucky” Martin, an assistant coach at Memphis; Tom Herrion, an assistant at Pittsburgh and the former head coach at the College of Charleston; Robert Burke, a Georgetown assistant; Danny Hurley, the head coach of St. Benedict’s Prep in N.J.; and Brett Gunning, Villanova’s associate head coach, have all come to Poughkeepsie with an interest in filling the Red Foxes’ vacancy. “I think the candidates all have different strengths and different types of backgrounds,” Marist AD Tim Murray said. “All of them could do a fine job as our coach. It now comes down to who is the best coach for our college. That’s critical. It’s really hard.”
A few interesting notes here.
**Martin has a relationship with Devin Ebanks from his days at St. John’s, so you have to wonder if he were to get the job, would it impact Memphis’ recruitment of Ebanks. Ebanks decommitted from Indiana and is set to visit four schools in the coming weeks: West Virginia, Texas, Rutgers and Memphis.
**Various reports have Villanova’s Gunning taking his name out of the running.
**As for Hurley (above), he turned down the associate coaching job under Jamie Dixon at Pitt last summer, but must feel an interest in pursuing a head job, especially one that’s relatively local and probably wouldn’t require his family to move. St. Ben’s churned out five Division I commits this year — seniors Samardo Samuels (Louisville) and Scott Machado (Iona); juniors Greg Echenique (Rutgers) and Tamir Jackson (UA
; and sophomore Tristan Thompson (Texas) — so maybe the coach feels it’s time to move on.
