Wake Forest fires Dino Gaudio

Despite making two straight NCAA Tournaments and winning 61 games in a three year stretch, Dino Gaudio was let go by Wake Forest on Wednesday. According to Wake Forest AD Ron Wellman, it was due to a lack of postseason success.

And its true, Gaudio hasn't had much. He's lost in the first round of the ACC Tournament all three years, and has just one tournament win, beating Texas in this year's first round.

A postseason record of 1-5 is borderline unacceptable when you have three first round picks coming through the program in that period. It probably shouldn't surprise anyone, either. Gaudio had just a 68-124 record at Loyola MD and Arny in the late 90's and early aughts.

The question many have asked is why now?

As Oregon, DePaul, and UNC-Wilmington have taught us, its not always a good idea to fire your coach wen you don't have a back-up plan in place. DePaul swung and missed a number of times before finally settling on Oliver Purnell, a man with less postseason success than Gaudio. Oregon has taken a swing at just about every DI coach in the country, and still cannot find anyone to pocket Phil Knight's millions.

But Wake Forest may have a plan.

There are currently three major conference jobs available -- Oregon, Clemson, and Wake Forest -- and one young buck that everyone is sure to be chasing, the one and only Brad Stevens. As I said, Oregon can throw a ton of money at Stevens -- a life-changing amount of money -- and it will be hard to turn down. But Stevens is 33 years old, he is going to have these offers for a long time, and Oregon isn't a "destination" job, it is a place you go before heading to one of the blue bloods. The same thing with Clemson. Its not really a basketball school and it wouldn't pay as much as Oregon. Would Stevens, an Indiana kid, be able to recruit at those two schools?

Wake Forest is the program with the most prestige of the three. Between Tim Duncan and Chris Paul and a couple ACC titles, the Demon Deacons are much more closely associated with basketball than either Clemson or Oregon. And Wake Forest has a good recruiting class joining a solid, young core group of kids still in Winston-Salem.

I'm willing to bet those kids stay with Wake if they can get Stevens.

Will they be able to get Stevens?

That is a whole different question. Personally, I think he stays at Butler.

How may coaches would kill to be in Stevens position? He's 33, he is returning a top five team at a mid-major school, and he can have his pick of a number of openings, all offering him millions.

A win either way.