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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Nashville bound: Lebo's future on everyone's mind as Tigers prepare for SEC tournament

It didn't take long for Jeff Lebo's future employment to come up at an SEC tournament press conference in Nashville on Thursday. In fact, it was the first question. Here was Lebo's response, handled like a pro:
"I'm focused on this team, and I'm focused on the tournament, focused on Florida. That's where all my energy is going right now, to these kids. As in most cases, I think, when the season's over, I'll sit down with my AD when the season's complete, and we'll have a conversation at that point, but that's it, that's kind of where it is right now."
OK, no new clues there. Nevertheless, I wrote my main story for today's newspaper about the factors that will likely be considered by athletics director Jay Jacobs when deciding Lebo's fate in the upcoming week. Here it is: Coach Jeff Lebo's future in limbo.

I also wrote a short story about the Tigers' first-round matchup with Florida at 7:30 p.m. ET, when Auburn will try to break the West's 0-for-24 slump against the East's top-four teams this season.

Fun fact that Billy Donovan brought up in his pre-tournament press conference: Auburn is one of two teams in the SEC to have either led or been tied at some point in the second half of every league game it played this season. The other? Kentucky.

Get that and many more fun facts by following me on Twitter this weekend. The blog caravan will arrive sometime early tomorrow afternoon, ready to tweet away before and after Auburn takes the court.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the big question is: How committed is Auburn to putting a winner on their brand-new floor? If it costs $1.5M to buy out Lebo and a similar amount per year to bring in a top-notch candidate, will they do it?

Andy Bitter said...

That's a pretty big financial commitment for a school whose top four sports are football, spring football, recruiting and 7-on-7 drills.

Then again, Auburn has already invested $92.5 million in the new arena. What's another $3 or $4 million?

Anonymous said...

Tough call on this one. I believe one of the key factors in CJL's hiring was the strong recommendation from Dean Smith. I would love to get his opinion on the situation now. -fjs