Ten Reasons Chris Lowery Should Not Take The DePaul Job

It has been nearly a week since we connected the dots on the DePaul coaching search and linked it to Southern Illinois coaches Chris Lowery and Lance Irvin.

Since Sunday, there has been lots of speculation on Lowery's future.

News flash: He isn't going anywhere.  At least, not until the season is over.

And here are 10 reasons Lowery will be back at Southern Illinois for next season and beyond.

1.  DePaul Sucks

The Blue Demons were blown out today by St. John's 67-47.  That would have been cool if Ron Artest was there and being coached Mike Jarvis.

Those days are long gone for the Red Storm.

Some say the decline of DePaul's hoops program began when then-AD Bill Bradshaw axed Joey Meyer.  I say the Blue Demons began to bottom out is when they offered a scholarship to Imari Sawyer and did not offer a schollie to Dwyane Wade.

Wade single-handedly took Marquette, put it back on the map and carried the team to the Final Four.  Sawyer dropped out after his sophomore year and is likely bagging groceries at Jewel in between playing pick up games at a local YMCA.

In either case, DePaul basketball is bad news.  Lowery has been a part of winning programs since high school, and it is not as if the Blue Demons have the talent to make a turnaround to become a .500 team over night.

2.  The All-State Arena (also sucks)


At SIU, Lowery's teams enjoy a unique homecourt advantage with the SIU Arena.  At least, prior to the last two years.  Still, whatever is left of the aura of the old barn is better than whatever DePaul has.

The Rosemont Horizon All-State Arena is one of the worst facilities to watch a basketball game at.  It's drab, dark and has the kind of atmosphere you would find at a house party hosted by guys who have never been laid.

It's a haul for fans in the city and kids on campus to get to.  Look, I know people that come from more than 50 miles to see Saluki games at the SIU Arena.  Those kinds of people really don't exist in Chicago, where you can watch an equally maddening basketball with the Bulls.  At least they have Derrick Rose.

3.  'I want Southern to be remembered as my program'


Early in the week, we talked to a source that happens to be close friends and former teammate of Lowery's.  The source, who preferred to remain anonymous told us that Lowery recently relayed to him that he wants to have a special legacy at SIU.

"I want Southern to be remembered as my program," the source says Lowery told him.

Those are pretty powerful words from the SIU alum.

4.  The MVC is more winnable than the Big East

The Big East has seven teams with RPIs in the top 25.  DePaul isn't one of them.  I'm not sure if DePaul has ever been one of them.

The Missouri Valley Conference is a much more winnable conference as far as I'm concerned.  And if Lowery's primary thing is winning at his alma mater, he might as well stay put.  Southern is a few focused efforts away from being 5-2 instead of the 3-4 it currently sits at in conference play.

Still, with a 3-4 record 7 games into the 18 game conference slate, SIU could find itself with a record better than .500 in conference.

And when Arch Madness comes around, anything can happen.

5.  2011

Carlton Fay will be a senior in his fourth year in the program.  Kevin Dillard, Anthony Booker and Nick Evans will be juniors.  Kendal Brown-Surles and Eugene Teague, who are logging healthy minutes as true freshmen, will be well-seasoned sophomores.

This is a team, that if it stays together and develops as Saluki teams have done in the past, that will be a NCAA Tournament team.  DePaul will not have a NCAA Tourney team in the next three years.

Think about it.

6.  Family matters

Chris Lowery is a family man, and a good chunk of his family that isn't in southern Illinois is in Evansville, Ind., which is a hop, skip and a jump away from Carbondale.

Let's also use this to mention the cost of living and sending the kids to school in Chicago is a wee-bit higher than southern Illinois.  That should be taken into consideration and likely would be taken into consideration.

And while the DePaul campus is just around the corner from Children's Memorial Hospital, one of the nation's premier health facilities for children, did I mention that the arena is nowhere near said facility?

That's what I thought.

7.  Who would SIU turn to?

A lot of people used the churning of the rumor mill to send Lowery on his way up I-57.  OK, hypothetically speaking now, Lowery is gone and has taken the DePaul job and is chowing on some Demon Dogs.

(Oh wait.  Demon Dogs doesn't exist any more.  Yet, another reason to not take the DePaul job.)

If you're SIU, where do you go?

Rodney Watson?  Yes.  Watson knows SIU and the region like the back of his hand, and we know he wouldn't take a BCS job over a place he spent 22 years.  And the following sentence is no knock on Rodney, but if Saluki Nation's top priority is a change in the system, why would you want to hire a guy who oversaw the system through four different coaches.

Kent Williams?  Too young.  Too inexperienced.  Would have loved him as an assistant coach, there's a reason Coach Martin at Missouri State tabbed him as one of his assistants.  The Saluki coaching staff is young as it is, which is one of the knocks Saluki fans continue to hark on.

Paul Lusk?  He would be more of a Matt Painter guy, but he was passed over when Lowery took the job in the first place.  You can find a pretty decent read on Lusk here.

And as long as Mario Moccia is the AD at SIU, the first name that will probably be tossed out there is Quin Snyder, who coached at Missouri when Moccia was an assistant AD.

It's a split reaction on how people feel about Snyder.

In any case, SIU would be starting anew.  Not necessarily a place you want to go with the talent on this team.

8.  Diamond Taylor

Imagine having Tony Freeman for four years.  That is what it's going to be like when the 6-foot-4-inch guard from Chicago finally puts on the maroon and white come next season.  Taylor might be the most talented player to come to SIU in Lowery's tenure and will have four years of eligibility.

Coaching a talent like that is a rarity for Southern, and if Lowery could keep him on the straight-and-narrow, the Salukis will be winning more games than the Blue Demons.

9.  Saluki Way


The two seating sections at the north and south ends of the SIU Arena no longer look like they were taken from a local high school gymnasium.  That's just a small step in the right direction for Southern Illinois and the Saluki Way program.

By the time the project is done, SIU will have a renovated arena that Lowery could proudly boast about to Saluki recruits.

There is no Blue Demon Way in Lincoln Park.  And playing in Rosemont excites kids as much as throwing a ball off the wall.

10.  It's still 2010.

Leaving during the middle of the season to coach another team is unprecedented and to my knowledge, it will stay that way.  Sources have told TBDS that DePaul has yet to contact Lowery or his agent.  Though, if and when that contact comes, it will be through Lowery's agent, not through Lowery or Southern Illinois.

(This is why I'm a big fan of buy-out clauses.)

Then there's this quote, which I'll pull from Lindsey Willhite's piece because I can no longer find it on SIU's Web site.

Q: "It's something we have to ask as journalists, but your name came up with the DePaul thing. Is that something that's flattering any time your name comes up with something like that?"

A: "It's a distraction right now. I mean, obviously, it's flattering, but you don't know if it's true or not, and you have to be very careful when you deal with that, because it affects my people here, my players here, and it affects their parents. We have other stuff creeping into their minds that we don't need at this point.

"I'm the head coach here at Southern Illinois, and that's what it's about with these kids. That's why they came here. We would like to think (they came to) Southern Illinois for the university, but it's a package deal, and that's the way college sports are now. They go for the coach, and they go for the school. That's a big part of where athletics has taken off to. "It was different when I was in school. You came because of the school and the reputation of the school, and now, it's not that way, and it's unfortunate. You want your kids in a state of mind where they feel that you're going to coach them and not that you're going to leave them. When that stuff surfaces, it's a negative image of me, and I haven't even created it. So we have to re-state where I am, who I am, and what I mean to them on a daily basis."

There you have it folks.  Have at it in the comments section, if you must.