With an announcement coming possibly as soon as Thursday that Rutgers will part ways with Fred Hill, multiple sources with knowledge say Fran Fraschilla is the program’s No. 1 choice to replace him.
“One of the current players called me and said he’s No. 1 on their list. He’s the guy on their radar,” the first source said of Fraschilla.
A second source is a relative of one of the current players on the team.
“He’ll probably get canned today,” the second source said of Hill. “There’s a team meeting this [Thursday] afternoon at 3 p.m. He [the player] is pretty sure that’s gonna happen today. Word is they’re trying to get Fran Fraschilla.”
Fraschilla, a former coach at St. John’s and Manhattan, recently pulled himself out of the Iona mix, insisting he wanted to remain at ESPN. CW Post coach Tim Cluess ultimately took the Iona job.
But Rutgers is a Big East job and could be enough to draw Fraschilla from the studio back to the sidelines.
“It pays a hell of a lot more than Iona,” the first source said.
As for Hill’s future, the source said it was a fait accompli that Rutgers will try to part ways with Hill based on cause for his recent profanity laced tirade at a baseball game and subsequent insubordination vis-a-vis athletic director Tim Pernetti.
“It’s done and it will be announced if not today then [Friday],” the first source said.
Former Rutgers center Hamady N’Diaye is at the Portsmouth Invitational camp and said he hadn’t heard anything about Hill’s status.
“I will probably find out once I get back to school,” N’Diaye said Thursday. “I heard lots of drama but I’m not really into it. I’m hoping this basketball thing works out.”
(Photo courtesy ESPN)
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bball purist / April 8, 2010
Fran’ll always be the man for what he did for my alma mater Manhattan. A look back in NCAA tourney history – Ominous precursor of the things to come for sore sport Kelvin Sampson. Upon Manhattan’s (w/ Fran coaching) upset of Oklahoma in the ’95 tourney, Kelvin the sore sport states, “The better team did not win today.” No credit to Manhattan’s team or Fran at all – what a sore loser – a caught cheater too!
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