A new assistant coach

So Coach Wojcik will be hiring another assistant coach, probably this summer. It's senseless to make wild stabs or guesses at who this might be as he may not even know who at this point. But it should be someone with solid northern California connections, especially the East Bay and Sacramento areas.

Why?

Southern California is currently a no-go zone for San Jose State University. Sure, there may hopefully be an exception made at some point (and the sooner the better) but the Spartans have burned too many bridges in and around Los Angeles. The Keith Shamburger and Joe Henson sagas soured relations with a number of high school and club team coaches in that area and the current Spartan win-loss record isn't changing any minds right now. Time (although who can predict how long?) and a competitive team will eventually change this.

Unfortunately, there aren't any sort of solid inroads into the northern California prep scene either because SJSU is MIA from any sort of college basketball radar. The terrific seasons UC Davis and Sacramento State are enjoying will only make this even more difficult.

The result? There's nobody from California period on the current roster (or in the batch of newest signees) who was originally scheduled to be on scholarship. That's jaw-dropping for a Mountain West Conference member located in the Bay Area, even though Coach Wojcik's tenure at Washington Square is but a brief two years.

The new assistant, whenever that hire takes place, needs to be someone with established Nor Cal credibility (plus SoCal would be a bonus but let's not get greedy). He needs to be an individual who is already respected and can get in doors currently closed to the Spartans.

Cash stipends to NCAA student-athletes is going to be in place soon. SJSU will have to pony up if the desire is to remain competitive with other MWC members in recruiting. So the future situation of a basketball roster loaded with more expensive out of state scholarshipped recruits isn't going to be financially feasible. In-state recruits receiving cash stipends will have to be the way to go.

Let's see who is hired.