Ball State fires Billy Taylor after six seasons

The two MAC basketball coaches with the most 'splaining to do this year were Louis Orr and Billy Taylor, no question. Orr is coming back next year at Bowling Green, but Ball State has already made their decision: their basketball coach in 2013-14 will be someone else. BSU AD Bill Scholl fired Taylor today after the Cardinals bowed out of the MAC Tournament yesterday with a loss to Buffalo.

I'd agree that Taylor ran the program well in just about every aspect except for the win-loss record, and in the end that's usually what matters most. (Scholl has admitted as much.) I thought that perhaps a run in the MAC tournament would be enough to keep Taylor not unlike how Stan Joplin's job was likely saved at Toledo in 2006 when, as a 7-seed, they reached the MAC title game. But the Cardinals, despite a 5-seed and the rare single-bye in this tournament, ran into a brick wall after finishing the regular season winning seven of eight games.

As I mentioned yesterday, the heir to Ball State basketball is going to receive a pretty good senior class, featuring Majok Majok, Jesse Berry, Chris Bond and Matt Kamieniecki. It's not the greatest foursome in the MAC but it's a decent core and somewhere to start. The one question moving forward with this team is a total of zero incoming juniors, so they may want to consider adding some juco transfers.

As for Taylor ... I think he'll land on his feet rather soon. He's only 40 years old and has many years of coaching left in him. His teams accomplished some nice things at Lehigh and possibly after sitting out a year, he'll find himself at another Division I low major school.