Florida Gulf Coast's Sweet Sixteen Appearance could lead to a Future Disaster for Program

Florida Gulf Coast head coach, Andy Enfield could become

         the next top coaching target of big time schools.

                    Picture Courtesy: Washington Post

Florida Gulf Coast has had an unlikely postseason experience thus far, becoming the first fifteen-seed in the NCAA tournament to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. The Eagles defeated two-seed, Georgetown in the second round of the tournament, and seven-seed, San Diego State in the third round. However, despite the tremendous story, don't expect this school to become some type of postseason lock in the seasons to come.

The reason? Coaching vacancies. UCLA was the first to fire their head coach with the firing of Ben Howland, who was at the school for ten years. Next was Minnesota by firing Tubby Smith after six seasons. Minnesota was an eleven-seed in the tournament and defeated six-seed UCLA in the second round. Now those schools will look to fill the hole left by those two veterans. These teams may look at Andy Enfield, who is becoming a coaching legend at Florida Gulf Coast this off-season.

Despite the amazing postseason performance by Enfield's Eagles, he has taken the road less traveled as a college basketball coach. After spending six years as an NBA Assistant (1994-2000), he used his MBA in Finance to start his own health care software company called Tracked Manager. His company was soon valued at $100 million, and he would later sell the company for "millions of dollars". In 2006, he went all-in on basketball. In 2011, Florida Gulf Coast hired him as their head coach, just after his five years at Florida State as an assistant.

Now, it won't be about the money, since his company has made him millions and millions of dollars, but whether or not the right offer comes about. UCLA and Minnesota will certainly look at Virginia Commonwealth head coach, Shaka Smart, and Butler head coach, Brad Stevens, but we'll see if Enfield gets a call as well.

This publicity may be a disaster in the future for the Eagles of Florida Gulf Coast, since their coach may be leaving them at the conclusion of the season. That (in my opinion) will lead to questions for recruits who may be considering Florida Gulf Coast, and uncertainty in the coaching carousel, which ultimately may lead the basketball program (which has only been around since 2002) down. The program may not be driven into the ground, but it could be the George Mason affect. George Mason made the final four in 2006, but now where have they been? Just one of those mid-major programs once again, which I believe will ultimately happen to the FGCU Eagles. Stay tuned.