Utah Utes Basketball: Larry Really Is A Candidate At Cal

Jan 2, 2014; Stanford, CA, USA; California Golden Bears head coach Mike Montgomery leaves the court after the game against the Stanford Cardinal at Maples Pavilion. California won 69-62. Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

So I made this post on April 1st about Larry being a candidate at Cal.  It turns out from Jon Rothstein at CBS Sports that I right.

The biggest thing about mine was, that mine was an April Fools joke as I told you yesterday.

I hadn’t been able to come up with something clever enough to fool people early in the day, so I thought of this.  And it worked, I got a few texts from Larry’s Lapdog’s to the effect of, “OH YOU’D JUST LOVE THAT WOULDN’T YOU.”

But if we take a moment, Larry showing interest in the Cal job makes sense for the reasons I actually put forward in the April Fools article.

• Larry’s relationship with Mike Montgomery
• People in the know saying Larry’s wife isn’t happy in Salt Lake and wants a bigger city.
• Larry likely wanting a higher profile job as well
• Cal, while not having Utah’s history is a more high profile job

As the Rothstein article indicated, Cal is going to pursue some names, meaning they aren’t excited to simply turn this job over to Travis DeCuire.  Plus with the Dykes hire having gone horribly wrong, is Cal really in a position to hand the job over to an untested coach?  After guys like Ammaker and Smart say know, Larry gives the Cal AD a much needed PR win and one the boosters just might be willing to underwrite.

From Larry’s point of view, dancing with Cal at least forces the Utah administration to give a much bigger raise and extension than they were previous prepared to do.  Larry didn’t take the Utah job for much money as even Boise St. wouldn’t give him an interview.  Utah was the only school offering.

Plus one other thought.  The three years Larry has been at Utah mark the longest he’s ever been at a coaching job.  He’s a bit of a wandering soul.

So we’ll keep an eye on this, but it kinda feels like they’re something here.