Six weeks ago, near the end of North Carolina's upset win over Wake Forest, Athletics Director Ron Wellman stood up during a timeout, crossed his arms and stared across the Joel Coliseum floor at the Deacons' bench.
He frowned, the corners of his mouth turned downward. He shifted his feet. He frowned some more.
Anyone watching Wellman watch the team wondered what he saw, from the executive perspective. But it's what he didn't see that mattered.
He didn't see an ACC coach for the long haul.
Yesterday, Wellman fired Dino Gaudio after three seasons, with four years left on the deal.
Gaudio might have changed those February perceptions during March, but Wake Forest's four-game losing streak and its abysmal performance against last-place Miami in the ACC Tournament opener and its eventual 90-60 NCAA checkout against Kentucky confirmed Wellman's darkest judgment.
For the second straight season, the team's sophomore star (Jeff Teague in 2009, Al-Farouq Aminu in 2010) slumped after an early surge, developed a remote expression of bewilderment and signed up for the NBA Draft. Once again -- for the second straight season under Gaudio, for the umpteenth time in the past generation -- the Deacons flamed out in the crucial tournaments that define contemporary college basketball. On all those counts, the results weren't there. "And," Wellman said at a news conference yesterday, "it simply boiled down to that."
These matters are seldom simple. The Gaudio debate divided Wake Forest fans. Almost everyone appreciated his mending work during the difficult days after mentor Skip Prosser died in the summer of 2007. Many fans assumed that two NCAA bids and an overtime victory against Texas bought Gaudio another year despite the shrill objections on the other side of the booster bracket, especially from some rich and passionate donors hankering for movement.
The retention assumptions seemed reasonable, but they ignored a harsher reality. Once businessman Wellman weighed the results and concluded that Gaudio wasn't his marathoner, he sprinted to the next rhetorical question. If you know the answer, why wait? The 61-31 overall record didn't offset the 1-5 postseason record. (If you throw deposed Al Skinner and DePaul-bound Oliver Purnell into the mix, the three departing ACC coaches were 2-11 over the past three postseasons.)
Wake Forest's margins of defeat in March games didn't pass muster. Wellman made that clear while fielding reporters' questions in the football stadium tower yesterday. The athletics department's incredibly detailed statement repeated those same statistics and read more like a supporting legal brief than a news release. Wellman obviously wants to sell his case to the larger audience and win over as many Gaudio sympathizers as possible. One day soon, Wellman hopes to win the news conference when he introduces the new coach.
But those rank as small victories, issues of public relations rather than tangible results. The bottom-line assessment will require a bottom line.
The top line will begin with four returning players (C.J. Harris, Ari Stewart, Tony Woods, Ty Walker), a second-semester transfer and five recruits. The future looks quite uncertain, with a potentially rocky transition from here to there.
The candidates? Wellman, a committee of one, has a private list for his private school. Speculators can point to alumnus Rusty LaRue, installed as an assistant last summer after Wellman critiqued the program, or Butler's hotter-than-hot Brad Stevens. Tubby Smith, a veteran with a North Carolina background and broad resume, is evidently negotiating a contract extension at Minnesota.
But those are just names right now. Wellman and Wake Forest sources suggest that he is beginning the process rather than wrapping it up -- which, if true, heightens the mystery.
There's no mystery about the natural stages of a basketball business plan.
Plan A -- fire the coach -- is relatively easy. Plan B -- hire the right guy -- is extremely hard.
lrawlings@wsjournal.com.
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