AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo.-
Unlike so many of his contemporaries across the Mountain West who hired new basketball coaches over the past month, Air Force athletic director Hans Meuh is looking for somebody to sustain a successful program, not rebuild a tattered one.
The Falcons have averaged 22 wins over the last four seasons but find themselves without a leader for the fourth time in five years following Jeff Bzdelik’s departure Wednesday to coach at the University of Colorado.
Meuh said “the field is wide open” and that he hopes to hire a new coach within two weeks. He said Bzdelik’s former assistants, who are under contract until month’s end, are free to apply.
He also said he doesn’t think there will be any dearth of marquee candidates for a program that has established itself as a national power under Joe Scott, Chris Mooney and Bzdelik, who went 50-16 in two seasons at the academy.
He said his e-mail was already full and his fax machine “smokin'” in the hours after Bzdelik bolted to Boulder for a package worth nearly $4 million over five years.
“We are on the national map,” Meuh said. “This program can be sustained and there are people out there who know that. We’ll get this done.”
Air Force is the fifth of nine Mountain West schools to change coaches since the season ended last month.
New Mexico fired Ritchie McKay and hired Steve Alford, Utah replaced Ray Giacoletti with Jim Boylen, Colorado State replaced Dale Layer with Tim Miles and Wyoming fired Steve McClain and hired Heath Schroyer.
While all those schools were trying to jump-start their programs, the Falcons have been flying high, winning a school-record 26th game and reaching the NIT semifinals last month, one year after going 24-7 and reaching the NCAA tournament in the most successful season in the 50-year history of the program.
Bzdelik said that despite the departures of six seniors, including four starters, he thinks the Falcons—who host Colorado next November—can have a very successful season next year no matter who’s coaching them.
With Ricardo Patton announcing his resignation at CU, effective at season’s end, back on Oct. 25, speculation was heavy all season that Bzdelik was the perfect fit for the Buffaloes.
They could pay him close to $800,000 a year and offer him the chance to compete in an elite conference while not having to move out of Colorado, a state he has come to embrace since coaching the Denver Nuggets from 2002 to 2004.
Meuh and academy superintendent Lt. Gen. John F. Regni met this week with Bzdelik to try to keep him at Air Force.
“We asked Jeff if there was anything we could have done short of equaling the money that CU offered and Jeff said no,” Meuh said.
Colorado paid the academy $270,000 to buy out Bzdelik’s contract, and Meuh said he would seek a higher buyout number in his next contract negotiation.
“I say that because these days it’s all an institution can do to protect itself” from seeing successful coaches continually plucked away, Meuh told The Associated Press.
While the next coach can expect a higher buyout clause, he might not be able to expect much more than the $315,000 base salary Bzdelik earned last year.
“We are right smack in line with what we have paid our head coaches within the conference,” Meuh said. “We’re right at the conference average. In fact, our assistants are at the No. 1 position in all the assistant categories. We’re very competitive within the conference. When you jump to the Big 12, the average doubles. The average for a head coach in the Big 12 is close to $1 million.
“I’m not going to get into a bidding war with the Big 12.”
