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Steve Prohm to Mississippi State? It makes sense

prohm

Mike Miller

Multiple sites are reporting that Mississippi State has contacted Murray State’s head coach Steve Prohm. Five days ago Mississippi State fired Stansbury, though they went through the typical charade of pretending that Stansbury was retiring.

After the Racers were bounced from the tourney, Prohm was quoted as saying, “I’ll be back. I love Murray, and I want to be at Murray. We signed a great class, and we have great kids coming back. We have a great future.”

But coaches say those things all the time.

Stansbury, for his part, had two years left on a contract which paid him about 1.5 million per year.

Since Prohm’s student-assistant days at Alabama, he has bounced around as an assistant coach for 13 years: Centenary, Southeastern Louisiana, Tulane and finally Murray State for five years. And then in May, 2011 Gary Williams retired at Maryland and everything changed. Mark Turgeon left Texas A&M to take over the Terrapins, and Prohm’s boss Billy Kennedy replaced Turgeon. That left the Murray State position open, and Prohm was given the promotion.

Now one year later he could be moving on.

Prohm to Mississippi State makes sense. He’s recruited the State for years (he was the one who recruited Isaiah Canaan). And his entire career has been in the south. In a town like Starkville, MS, that’s a big deal.

Murray State has been a stepping-stone job in recent years. Three of Prohm’s four predecessors moved on to high major positions: Mark Gottfried went to Alabama (now at NC State), Mick Cronin made the jump from Murray State to Cincinnati, and Billy Kennedy went to Texas A&M. Now Prohm could have the opportunity to join them, and soon.