This really isn’t a surprise. If an assistant wants to eventually become a head coach, he is best served by working for a couple different coaches. Even better when you go to become an assistant on a team that lost the national championship in OT. Chris Dokish and Pittsburgh Sports Report have sent word that Orlando Antigua is heading to Memphis.
Pitt assistant and former player Orlando Antigua has accepted an assistant coaching position under John Calipari at Memphis.
He will join the Tigers staff pending approval by the school president and Board of Regents, which should happen very soon, but may delay an official announcement until Monday.
The Bronx native will be recruiting against his former team in New York once he officially starts.
Good luck to Orlando — but not too much.
But as for Calhoun, he has skin cancer, a squamous cell probably, ad that’s no big deal if caught early enough. His prostate cancer was infinitely a bigger concern.
Calhoun already had the growth removed. He is going to be undergoing radiation treatment to prevent a recurrence — this was the second time he had a skin growth removed.
He announced it, because the treatments will cause him to look and be a little weaker during the summer. Not to mention miss a few events.
It was smart of Calhoun to make it known from a recruiting standpoint. It stopped some rumors and makes anyone who goes negative in recruiting against him look like complete scum.
Either way, best of luck to Calhoun and here’s to a speedy recovery.
However, it still bothers me when guys who have done a great job collecting inside sources don’t cite a source (even if it’s “anonymous”, or “someone with knowledge of the program”, or in this case Orlando himself, etc.) in their articles. Call it a petpeeve but it’s journalism 101.
Sorry for opening a can of worms. Dokish is great, I couldn’t hold his jock as a writer (hence why I am no longer a journalist), it’s just a disagreement in style. Keep up the great work everyone.
With regard to Antigua, it’s a big loss on one hand, but Pitt recovered pretty well from losing Barry Rohrssen, and that at the time was considered to be a MUCH bigger deal.
We are not going to have a hard time finding a replacement. Pitt is a possible top 5 team, top 10 at the very least so people will be more than glad to move cross country to be part of that. I don’t know if Knight is ready to move up right now. Obviously we love Brandon but I would personally go try to find another Herrion.
Speaking of Herrion, he won’t be here forever, so Knight could cash in then. After all, we go through so many assistant’s that it’s almost a given that Knight will get a shot before too long. I guess what I am trying to say is, I want a hard-ass with experience(see, Herrion) to beat our kids into shape. I have read that Knight does his job well so there is no reason to get upset if he gets promoted.
Either way we are looking for a new staff member no?. I don’t know if it would be good strategy to go after a guy that can recruit Florida/Georgia. It sounds tempting to me but with the D.C area and NYC always a hotbed for talent, it might be a better idea to find a man with ties there. If we get someone that can recruit in Philly, I would very satisfied. We know that we can beat St Johns to people, but beating Villanova, would be fantastic.
“Wonder if Knight will step up from video coordinator?”
He already did last year when Cox left for Georgetown. Brandin was the Director of Basketball Operations last year, which meant he had limited recruiting opportunities. He was able to recruit once a player came onto campus, but could not visit anyone.
As an aside, as much as we villify Calhoun, here’s wishing him the best. He’s battling cancer again. The Big East wouldn’t be the same without him:
link to basketballprospectus.com