Coach watch: Radcliffe likes Smith, Wilbon wants Grant

On Saturday, March 21, two prominent sportswriters offered some free advice to UVA athletic director Craig Littlepage about whom he should hire to coach the Cavaliers men's basketball team. Venerable Daily Progress scribe Jerry Radcliffe cast his vote for Minnesota coach Tubby Smith. "Don’t expect it to be an overnight process. It takes time to line up these kinds of deals," writes Radcliffe. "But it’s the best deal Virginia could possibly make. Tubby Smith coming to Virginia would be the best thing that’s happened to Wahoo basketball since Ralph Sampson signed on the dotted line." Meanwhile Washington Post writer and ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon devotes his Saturday column to endorsing Virginia Commonwealth head coach Anthony Grant. "Grant, 42, is smart, composed, strategically creative, a terrific recruiter," writes Wilbon. "His resum© has it all. He spent 10 years at Florida helping Billy Donovan build the program that won back-to-back national championships. Grant was with Donovan at Marshall before that and was a high school coach in Miami before that. You think Virginia couldn't use a coach with those kinds of recruiting ties?"