Mike Anderson is a good man. A good husband, father and person. He graduated his players, and mostly they stayed out of trouble.
But his chosen profession is a fickle one.
What he didn't do at the University of Arkansas is the same thing 10 other SEC coaches in the past five years didn't do -- make it to the NCAA Tournament and win multiple games. Every school except Kentucky and South Carolina has changed head basketball coaches at least once since 2014.
Right or wrong, the measuring stick of a coach's success is the NCAA Tournament. You can't win a national championship if you don't get in the tournament.
Florida, Auburn, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee and LSU made the NCAA Tournament, and they all hired coaches within the past five years. Three of those programs are in the Sweet 16.
With schools paying millions of dollars to coaches, they have a right to expect results that make the administration --and more importantly -- the fans happy.
No doubt it was a hard call and a tough meeting between Anderson and Athletic Director Hunter Yurachek, who has been on the job for a little more than a year. Anderson was 169-102 overall and 78-64 in SEC play in his eight seasons, but he was 2-3 in the NCAA Tournament. A lot fans weren't happy, and that was obvious by the decline in attendance.
A program that once attracted 20,000 for a nonconference game was lucky to get half that for a conference game this season.
That's leaving a lot of money on the table.
As Anderson himself said, this season was disappointing. One and done in the SEC Tournament and 2-9 against teams that made the Big Dance don't bode well.
It really wasn't personal. College athletics is a business now, and sometimes a hard one.
Since the end of the season, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt and Alabama -- apparently basketball really does matter for the Crimson Tide -- were fired, and now Yurachek finds himself in a line with UCLA, and possibly Arizona, in the search for a new coach.
Everyone is going to immediately think Kelvin Sampson is the top candidate, but the Houston coach has his plate full as he prepares to face the beast of the SEC, Kentucky, in the Sweet 16. If he beats the Wildcats, he'll be a huge Hog fan favorite.
Yurachek didn't hire Sampson at Houston -- everyone knows Sampson sat out of college basketball for five years because of NCAA violations prior to landing at Houston, but there has been no whisper of impropriety during his six years with the Cougars -- but he finished the fundraising to renovate Hofheinz Pavilion and add a practice facility during Sampson's tenure.
Yurachek and Sampson are friends, but if Arizona opens up and pursues him, that might interest Sampson more.
Chris Beard's record speaks for itself. He beat Purdue in the NCAA Tournament in 2016 during his only year at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, made the Elite Eight last season at Texas Tech, and is in the Sweet 16 this year.
Understand that after a quarter of a century of irrelevance, the Arkansas job is not as attractive as it once was. At the same time, there are a lot of coaches who see the facilities and the fan base and would like a shot at returning the Razorbacks to their glory days.
Yurachek should have had a short list of candidates before terminating Anderson, who will be fine financially with a $3 million buyout.
If he wants to, Anderson will coach again. Until then, he'll probably have a shot at some TV work.
He's a good man who chose a fickle career field.
Sports on 03/27/2019