Moore should weigh his options carefully

ATLANTA — Over the next week to 10 days Wes Moore is going to say and do all the right things regarding his coaching future at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Ten years the coach of the Lady Mocs, he once again has his team on one of those runs that makes March magical, or as Moore prefers to call it, “March Gladness.”

So whenever questions arise about his interest in any number of high-major jobs, Moore will grin his aw-shucks grin, break into his best Texas twang and say something about, “being lucky to have the job I have.”

And as long as UTC continues to build on its 24 straight victories, currently the nation's longest streak, that answer will work almost as well as his Xs and Os.

But sooner or later the Lady Mocs' season will end in the NCAA Tournament and the 50-year-old Moore will hopefully have a decision to make regarding his future. Should he stay or should he go?

Is Alabama, which fired coach Stephany Smith on Tuesday at the end of three dreadful seasons, the job that can deliver him the salary and acclaim that he deserves? Or was the Lady Mocs' 62-34 win against the Crimson Tide a sign that UTC is currently a better position?

Moreover, Bama almost certainly won't be the last job to open this spring in the SEC and beyond. The bigger the budgets, the greater the expectation level. Firing Smith was easy. She never won more than 10 games. Her SEC record was 4-41. The bigger shock would have been if she had kept her job.

But as the NCAA and women's NIT tourneys begin, as some schools are left out and others frustrate their administrations and fans, other jobs will become available and Moore will almost certainly earn consideration.

If he doesn't, the dunderheads who have shockingly ignored him before should receive their own pink slips.

But before Moore accepts a job with Alabama or any other big-time program, he needs to read the fine print and study these schools’ struggling pasts. Mostly, he needs to research the road taken by Auburn coach Jeff Lebo.

The two men know each other well, given their shared love for golf and Lebo’s two seasons coaching the UTC men's team before he left for Auburn in the spring of 2004.

It seemed a questionable move at the time, given the Tigers’ uneven past, the mess left behind by Cliff Ellis and Lebo's determination to win the right way, which hasn't always been a Tiger trademark.

But Auburn could deliver fairly big money and a long-term contract, something UTC could not, even though it had cobbled together a package that was paying the former North Carolina Tar Heel great more than $300,000 annually, a figure preposterously out of whack with the rest of his league brethren's relatively meager Southern Conference salaries.

Still, Lebo was approaching 40 and he had yet to guide a team to the NCAA Tournament, despite resurrecting programs at both Tennessee Tech and UTC.

You might have to win your league tourney to take those programs to the Big Dance, he no doubt reasoned. But at a major conference school such as Auburn all you have to do is finish sixth in a 12-team league to earn serious NCAA tourney consideration.

The choice seemed simple. Maybe too simple. Four years later Lebo is still chasing that elusive first NCAA bid as the Tigers face No. 17 Vanderbilt this afternoon in the opening round of the SEC Tournament.

His current team stands 14-15. His best record to date was 17-15 a year ago. Four years into an eight-year contract he is still rebuilding.

“This was supposed to be our year,” said his father Dave, who has been by his son's side at TTU, UTC and Auburn. “But we got injuries everywhere.”

Indeed, Auburn dresses but seven scholarship players thanks to injuries and ineligibilities. As the school's game notes explain, Lebo has lost 4,573 player minutes thus far this season. Even with a new gym on the way for the 2010-11 season, the AU faithful are beginning to wonder if Lebo can turn it around.

“I don’t have questions about our effort,” he said of a Tigers team that has lost 10 of its last 12. “We are getting worn out a little bit.”

Lebo says he hasn’t spoken to Moore. He does say there are certain things any coach should look for when moving up the ladder, especially a 50-year-old guy coaching women who may only get one chance in the big-time.

“Is there a commitment there?,” said Lebo. “Do they have some tradition? You've got to look at it from where you are in your career. What do you want to accomplish?”

His dad stepped in. “You need to know,” said Dave Lebo, “the length of your contract.”

Four frustrating years into an eight-year deal, no one understands that better than his son.