In the spring of 2017, Paul Weir was named as the new head coach at UNM, filling the open position that was vacant after the firing of Craig Neal. While it is easy to say that Coach Weir was a great hire after his excellent first season as the Head Coach at NMSU, there were a few things that needed to happen for Coach Weir to even be considered for the position. In order to do so, we have to go back to early 2016 and look at the dominos that had to fall for UNM to hire Paul Weir:

1. UNLV firing Dave Rice Midseason: Yes, this all starts with conference rival UNLV firing their head coach in the middle of the season (and right before they play UNM after their 0-3 start to conference play, no less). With the timing of the firing, it was something that should have set up UNLV for a slam dunk hire in early to mid-March (which they arguably did with their first hire). With UNLV promoting Todd Simon to interim Head Coach, it was clear that UNLV would be hiring someone that wasn’t on staff. We wrote about the very interesting hiring process at UNLV back in 2016.

2. Brian Gregory firing at Georgia Tech: Next, we head to the place where Craig Neal played college basketball in Atlanta, Georgia. After a few years of being on the hot seat at Georgia Tech, the boosters and the Athletic Department at Georgia Tech decided that it was time to move on from Gregory. By firing Gregory, Georgia Tech had to find a coach that was looking to move up to the ACC, or a coach that was looking for a new landing spot (seat getting warm/hot). While there were Craig Neal rumors (as there always were when Georgia Tech was looking for a new coach), they set their eye on the head coach of Memphis Josh Pastner. A nice get for Pastner, as it ended up saving him from getting fired at Memphis in the next 12 months.

3. Memphis hiring Tubby Smith: As is the case with most hires, you steer clear of the blueprint of a coach you wanted to move on from. Memphis took this idea to the extreme by picking up the veteran head coach Tubby Smith, who had just started to build Texas Tech back up from the downturn they had been experiencing. Smith really didn’t have roots in West Texas, but had roots in the Southeastern part of the country, making Memphis a better fit. As we now know with the firing of Smith to hire Penny Hardaway, Memphis could have stopped this chain reaction right then and there by hiring Penny in 2016.

4. Texas Tech hires UNLV Head Coach Chris Beard: With Texas Tech losing Smith to Memphis in an unexpected move, they were put in a coaching search they hadn’t planned on. The easy choice that would have been on the top of the list to replace Smith was Chris Beard who had just been hired at UNLV. So, for many, it looked like they may have to look elsewhere. But, due to the mess that was the UNLV coaching search, the door was wide open for Texas Tech to hire Chirs Beard to his dream job. The Chris Beard era at UNLV is remembered fondly.

5. Texas Rio Grande Valley not hiring Paul Weir: After being the number 2 man for years at NMSU, Coach Weir was able to interview for Division 1 jobs at the lower WAC type schools. While a very qualified guy got the job (an Oklahoma assistant), it was still somewhat surprising that Weir didn’t get this job,. For Coach Weir, it was a blessing that he didn’t because of what was to come in the coming weeks. If Coach Weir had gotten this job, it seems unlikely that he would have thrown his name into the hat when UNM’s position opened.

6. UNLV having to restart a Coaching Search: After UNLV’s long and interesting coaching search that ended with Chris Beard  selected as the new head coach, they were all set to announce their new hire. Then, in a surprise move, he took the Texas Tech job, leaving UNLV in a weirder spot than before. UNLV had a decision to make: go back to the coaches they had turned down when they hired Beard or start a new search from scratch. They decided to go back to their previous candidate list and hired NMSU head coach Marvin Menzies, which put Coach Weir in an interesting spot. Would he follow Menzies to UNLV or be named the Head Coach at NMSU?

7. Paul Weir named Head Coach at NMSU: NMSU was now in the position of looking for a new coach with Menzies at UNLV. Of course, as they had lost their coach to the second hiring at UNLV instead of the first, they’re options were more limited than if their position had opened earlier. With this happening, they had to consider an outside hire or promoting longtime associate head coach Paul Weir. NMSU made the right call by hiring Coach Weir, and they were rewarded with a fantastic first season. It was very important for Coach Weir to get his first head coaching job at a program that he helped build in recent memory.

8. UNM had a good enough year in 2016: If UNM had the season they had in 2017, there would have been a chance that UNM would have fired Craig Neal after the 2016 season. UNM had a decent 2015-16 season, meaning that firing Craig Neal wasn’t even on the table. I suspect that between the controversies surrounding Cullen and the general sense that the honeymoon period was over, it could have been possible for Neal to try to leave for another job. But, nothing happened in either direction, leaving him in charge for 2016-17.

9. UNM waiting until midnight to fire Craig Neal: The day after the 2017 season ended, then-AD Paul Krebs put out a statement that Craig Neal would be back as the Head Coach for the 2017-18 season. During the few weeks that led to the April 1st deadline (where his salary would be guaranteed for the season), we saw a number of players announcing their plans to transfer. Beyond that, many fans voiced that they wouldn’t renew their season tickets. It got to the point that UNM realistically couldn’t afford to keep Craig Neal as the head coach, in a simply economic sense. Had UNM fired Neal right after the season ended, there is a very good chance that Coach Weir wouldn’t have been on the table at that stage, as he was prepping for the NCAA Tournament with NMSU.

10: Coach Weir having a different personality to Coach Neal: As mentioned earlier, when making the hire of a new head coach to replace one that was fired, you tend to go for the polar opposite of the last coach. It doesn’t take long to figure out that Coach Weir is very different in how he deals with fans, the media, and his players than Coach Neal. Early returns have been positive, as he’s won over a lot of people who were driven away in the past few years and has shown success on the court. If that keeps up, I hope that the dominos stop falling here.