UPDATE 11:13 a.m.
ESPN is reporting that Josh Pastner will be Georgia Tech’s next men’s basketball coach. No word on financials.
According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Pastner will be introduced at a 3:30 p.m. EDT news conference in Atlanta.
ORIGINAL POST
According to multiple reports, Georgia Tech is focusing its men’s basketball coaching search on Memphis Coach Josh Pastner. ESPN’s Jeff Goodman has a source telling him that the deal could be finalized on Friday.
The Yellow Jackets are looking to replace Brian Gregory, who was fired last week after five seasons and zero NCAA tournament appearances.
Pastner, 38, is seen as a strong recruiter but a lesser coach. He’s led the Tigers to four NCAA tournament appearances in seven seasons but never has taken Memphis past the tournament’s opening weekend. The Tigers have failed to reach the postseason the past two years and attendance as slumped from more than 16,000 in 2013-14, the year of Memphis’s last NCAA tournament appearance, to 11,812 last season, when Memphis went 19-15 and lost in the American Athletic Conference title game.
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Nevertheless, Memphis said Pastner would remain the team’s coach even though the environment around the program has become “toxic and unsustainable,” according to Geoff Calkins of the Memphis Commercial Appeal, both because of the program’s downward trajectory and because of the sweetheart contract extension Pastner signed after a 31-win season in 2012-13. Pastner was represented in those negotiations by the same attorney who arranged Athletic Director Tom Bowen’s deal with Memphis in 2012, raising conflict-of-interest allegations that the school is investigating. With no buyout clause in what is essentially a guaranteed contract, Pastner would be owed his full $10.6 million salary for the remaining four years of his deal if the school decided to fire him now. It reportedly would be the biggest severance package in college basketball history.
So Pastner’s departure to Georgia Tech would actually help Memphis, seeing as how that $10.6 million it owes Pastner would most likely be reduced should he take another job. Calkins says Pastner’s agent would probably try to negotiate a settlement should he leave for Georgia Tech, with Memphis paying the difference between his old deal and his new one with the Yellow Jackets.
According to Gary Parrish of CBS Sports, Pastner’s deal with Georgia Tech is being held up precisely because he’s trying to negotiate a buyout with Memphis in order to supplement the salary he receives from Georgia Tech.
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Here’s why Pastner’s Georgia Tech salary might be on the low side and why Pastner wants Memphis to help out in that regard: Georgia Tech will soon be paying three men’s basketball coaches. Gregory is owed more than $1.3 million for the final two years of his contract and Paul Hewitt, who was fired in 2011, is still owed $2.7 million over the next three years.
In any case, it’s a good situation for Pastner to be in, because he holds all the cards. He can simply stay at Memphis and continue to be paid handsomely. But many people at Memphis want him gone and probably would gladly pay to see that. Just not $10.6 million.
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