Haith leaves Mizzou to take Tulsa job

Published on Thursday, 4/17/14, at 4:59 p.m. Eastern.

By Brian Edwards

In the state of Missouri, there is such thing as Christmas in mid-April. That’s right, Santa Claus came to Columbia today and delivered an almost-too-good-to-be-true present.

Frank Haith is bolting town to take the Tulsa job.

This isn’t good news for Mizzou — it’s GREAT news!

Instead of dealing with a coach on the hot seat that has a checkered history with the NCAA for all of 2014-2015, the Tigers can now go find a quality coach and start building for the future.

As usual, the first calls will likely go out to Gregg Marshall and Shaka Smart of Wichita St. and VCU, respectively. But I don’t see either coach jumping for this gig. I’m not even sure Dayton’s Archie Miller would listen, but that’s the third phone call I would make.

The reality is that Tennessee is a better job and its search for the next coach in Knoxville got started 48 hours earlier. Still, Mizzou is going to land a coach that’s better than Haith, who was mediocre at Miami and whose relative success at Mizzou can be credited to inheriting an excellent roster built by Mike Anderson.

Even if the Tigers don’t make a home-run hire in the next week, today’s developments should ignite a celebration in Columbia. Haith is gone and that’s good riddance.

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