Wake Forest assistant coach Pat Kelsey is one of the leading candidates for the High Point coaching vacancy, sources say.
After speaking with Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports, it is believed that there are four coaches that High Point is interested in, two of which have already interviewed.
The four coaches are G.G. Smith, Ryan Odom, Scott Cherry and Kelsey.
G.G. Smith, son of Minnesota Head Coach Tubby Smith, played for Tubby at Georgia and is an assistant at Loyola (MD). Tubby's alma matter was High Point. At Loyola, his main duty is recruiting
Ryan Odom is in his sixth season as an assistant coach at Virginia Tech. His primary responsibility is scouting. Odom had three years as an assistant under Jeff Jones at American University and has also been an assistant coach at UNC-Asheville, Furman and as an administrative assistant at South Florida under Seth Greenberg.
University of South Carolina assistant Scott Cherry has nine years of assistant coaching experience. In his first year at USC, he also served at Western Kentucky and at George Mason. He formerly played for North Carolina, graduating in 1993.
Coach Pat Kelsey has been on the Wake Forest staff since 2002, as both Director of Basketball Operations (02-04) and Assistant Coach (05-present). He was formerly an assistant coach at the prestigious Elder High School of which he is an alumnus. He played under Skip Prosser at Xaiver from 1995-1998.
Kelsey if taking the job, will provide a breadth of recruiting experience in North Carolina. He is part of the reason that Wake has had such good recruiting efforts, drawing some of the better players in N.C.
High Point Head Coach Bart Lundy was fired after a 9-21 season. He had a roster of 13 freshmen and sophomores. The 37-year-old Lundy's record was 96-87 overall but he did reach the Big South title game after finishing 19-11 in his first season.
What's the appeal for this job? I would imagine that Kelsey would be sought after for bigger positions and the High Point job offers very little room for success. The players often don't stay all four years, and he would need to recruit and bring in JuCo players to even compete.
But there is always the opportunity that the job could be a springboard for a bigger job, but with all the riders on the coaching carousel every season, it might behoove Kelsey to stick around one more season and see what else opens up.
This job might be perfect for G.G. Smith, with his dad as a High Point grad and having little Head Coaching experience. He would get time to formulate his own philosophy and go through the growing pains of a new head coach with hopefully few expectations.
I'll be keeping a close eye on the situation--as both Kelsey and Coach Battle have come up in coaching rumors over the last couple weeks. And with Wake out of the tournament, there is a lot more time for that talk.