Iona College and Wake Forest tried to sneak in debatable hires.

Before Iona hired Rick Pitino and Wake Forest fired Danny Manning, all college basketball coaching changes were at small schools with either no-names or up-and-comers we hadn’t heard of yet.

Then Pitino returned to the college game needing two porters to carry all of his baggage. Iona, which decades ago hatched Jim Valvano, brought back another New York native without truly vetting him. Iona may have to live without Pitino for a while as he is back into the investigation at Louisville, his former school.

Pitino caught a break when the NCAA cited him for a Level 2 violation at the ‘Ville, where he was supposed to be in charge of a program that hired hookers and strippers to entertain recruits and he was caught on wire taps talking about paying a player to come there. Those are really Level 1 charges, so we’ll see how that plays out at Iona.

Wake Forest looks like it used the pandemic to give Manning his walking papers and avoid much scrutiny for that and hiring Steve Forbes as his successor. Athletic Director John Currie, who was born in Chapel Hill and has a checkered past, tapped his old colleague Forbes, who was in trouble before resurfacing at East Tennessee State.

Currie is working behind the scenes to negotiate a lower settlement than Manning’s $15 million buyout. He met Forbes when they both were assistants at Kansas State. Currie then lasted 9 months as the AD at Tennessee, where he hired former Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano and had to rescind the offer when alumni, fans and students revolted.

His alma mater, Wake Forest, hired him after that, and when people learn more about the funny, friendly 55-year-old Forbes, they may question that hire. Forbes was an assistant to the controversial Bruce Pearl at Tennessee and got a one-year show-cause banishment from Division I for lying to the NCAA about the recruiting violation that cost Pearl his job there.

Forbes has said he chose between lying and telling the truth about Pearl; now he’s coaching in the Power 5 and the ACC. Go figure.

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