Michigan Basketball: 3 reasons why Ed Cooley is a serious candidate
Cooley is scheduled to have an interview
The last piece of this puzzle is that there are rumors of a meeting taking place today (Monday) between Cooley and Manuel.
This is coming from Sam Webb of the Michigan Insider. Yet, it’s just coming from a single source, so it’s only posted on message boards of the Michigan Insider site. However, throughout his process, Webb has been consistently saying Cooley would get an interview and he appears to be right.
Update: Nick Baumgardner of the Detroit Free Press also confirmed and reported Monday that Manuel did meet with Cooley about the job.
Sources: Michigan AD Warde Manuel expected to speak with Providence’s Ed Cooley about UM basketball job Monday, Juwan Howard on Tuesday.
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) May 20, 2019
Final decision could come this week. https://t.co/xm704PkTtu
Cooley is in Florida right now for the Big East meetings and it sounds like Manuel is too. The timing is interesting with Howard set to interview tomorrow.
Another thing to remember is that Manuel hired a former NBA guy at UConn in Kevin Ollie and while they did win a national title, it was a terrible flameout afterward. Manuel was also in the Big East when Cooley was coaching at Providence, so there is familiarity.
Next. Pros and cons of each top coaching candidate. dark
None of this is to say Cooley will get the job over Howard. But there are reasons why his candidacy makes sense, in some areas, maybe even more than Howard. There is a lot to consider but in my mind, if Howard doesn’t end up being the coach, Cooley has a good chance of being the guy.