Listen up, DePaul ... here's the plan for turning things around

The real college basketball competition right now isn't the NCAA Tournament.

It's the race to fill coaching vacancies at places like Iowa and Oregon, which surely are scouting the postseason events for candidates.

Closer to home and more interesting is the race DePaul is waging against St. John's.

Each plays in the Big East. Each is located in a big city. Each has a gaudy tradition. Each wants a new coach to reverse recent reversals.

Neither DePaul nor St. John's has an easy task. Neither has a football program to help fund basketball. Also, they aren't playing only for trophies against the Big East, they're playing for fans against pro teams in their pro towns.

Still, Villanova is in the Big East and in a big city, boasts great tradition and lacks a major-college football team.

'Nova is in the NCAA Tournament most years, a good model for St. John's out east. So is Marquette, a good model for DePaul back here.

It can happen. Heck, if Cornell can beat Wisconsin and be in the Sweet Sixteen, anything can happen. If Northern Iowa can beat No. 1 Kansas, anything is possible.

So, what to do?

Well, DePaul thinks it's thinking big by pursuing Pittsburgh head coach Jamie Dixon. St. John's is calling DePaul on that and raising Florida's two-time national champion Billy Donovan.

That points up a primary difference between the two cities - ego.

There they think Donovan would be crazy to decline the chance to coach in New York, where his roots are. Here we wonder why Dixon would leave a successful Pittsburgh program for Chicago.

Anyway, it seems that all DePaul can do in this battle against St. John's is raise the ante by exploring whether Duke's Mike Krzyzewski wants to return home to Chicago.

Before the poker game ends, St. John's will pursue Pat Riley and DePaul will pursue Phil Jackson.

Back to reality: The DePaul and St. John's administrations declared a willingness to pay huge salaries to new coaches. The return on investment would be the publicity - and by extension students and donations - that a premier basketball team attracts.

So here's my two-tiered plan for DePaul, where athletic director Jean Lenti Ponsetto indicated it might take awhile to make a hire because of coaching commitments to the NCAA Tournament.

Looking around that sure sounds like Baylor's Scott Drew. He isn't splashy but what a job he did to resurrect a way down program way down Waco way.

Drew is a product of Valparaiso, where his father Homer still coaches and his brother Bryce made one of the NCAA Tournament's most memorable shots.

Then there's the second half of my plan to revive DePaul, with apologies to my fellow alums at Illinois. Test Illini assistant coach Jerrance Howard's professed loyalty to his alma mater by offering to triple his $180,000 salary.

Drew could recruit a few of the growing number of blue chippers in Texas, and Howard could continue recruiting many of the type of in-state talent that he helped Illinois collect the past couple years.

Not even Billy Donavan would do better at St. John's than the Drew/Howard tandem would do at DePaul.