Pros and Cons of Arizona Basketball potentially hiring Josh Pastner

As the Arizona Basketball team continues its search for a new head coach, we look at one potential candidate in Josh Pastner.

We’re almost a full week into the Arizona Basketball head coaching search, and so far we have seen a lot of names pop up as potential candidates, one of which is former Wildcat and current Georgia Tech head coach, Josh Pastner.

A fairly popular name among Arizona Wildcats fans, Josh was once the beloved bench player that won a championship with the Wildcats in 1997.

Arizona Wildcats

Since then, many always believed that Josh was the head coach in waiting at Arizona, after all, he was essentially hand-picked by the late great Lute Olson to be on his staff from 2002-08.

Josh is still relatively young, he’s been head coaching for 12 years and has found some moderate success both at Memphis and Georgia Tech.

While he doesn’t jump out as a candidate compared to some of the other coaches we’ve seen named, however, for the Wildcats, he’s perhaps one of the safer choices.

On paper, he looks serviceable and checks a lot the right boxes. His addition would satisfy those that want an alumnus, plus, he at least has enough head coaching experience to potentially lead us from the current dire straits Arizona Basketball is in.

For those that need a reminder, here’s Josh’s resume:

Josh Pastner

Age: 43
Position: Head Coach
School: Georgia Tech
Record: 249-148 (.627)
Alma Mater: Arizona

Resume:

As a Player:

Arizona – 1996-00

As a Coach:

Arizona (Assistant) – 2002-08
Memphis (Assistant) – 2008-09
Memphis (Head Coach) –2009-16
Georgia Tech (Head Coach) – 2016-Present

Pros:

A decent but not great head coach, many always thought Josh was the coach in waiting to take over for the great Lute Olson. His path, however, has taken him all over except as head coach of Arizona, where he has seen moderate success. Perhaps this is the opportunity he is looking for.

• He has head coaching experience.
• He’s a decent, but not a great recruiter.
• He also loves and understands Arizona Basketball and the culture that comes with it.

Cons:

Again, he’s a decent but not great coach. After receiving the head coaching job at Memphis in the post-John Calipari years, he essentially got pushed out at a place with high expectations, for not winning enough.

In his 12 seasons as a head coach, he has been to the NCAA Tournament just five times, never getting past the Round of 32. Are we to believe he would have better results than Miller in the tournament, and does he have the ability to lead us out of this mess?

Plus, Josh has some skeletons of his own, having gotten Georgia Tech on probation.