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Here is who CBS Sportsline speculates as the favorite.


American coach Jones high on SMU's list
Feb. 27, 2004
By Gregg Doyel
SportsLine.com Senior Writer
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Now that he has fired Mike Dement, SMU athletic director Jim Copeland will undertake a national search that figures to have a distinct American flavor.

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As in American coach Jeff Jones.

Jones was the last men's basketball coach hired by Copeland, and he could be the next, too. At American, Jones has turned around a program that went 7-20 in his 2000-01 debut. The past three seasons American has gone 49-38, including 28-13 in the Patriot League.

Copeland, who inherited Dement when he left Virginia in 1995 for SMU, hired Jones at Virginia in 1991. The year Copeland left for SMU, Jones went 25-9 and reached the Elite Eight. Over the next three seasons, a series of off-court mistakes by Jones' players led to his downfall.

Jones' work at American, including the Patriot League's 2002 regular-season championship, has returned his name to the "hot young coach" status he had when Copeland hired him in 1991. Jones, 29 at the time, now is 42.

SMU is 10-15 this season, only the second losing season in 10 years for Dement, whose record at the school was 138-120. The Mustangs never went to an NCAA Tournament with Dement, who was fired with three games left on the schedule.

Jeff Jones would have been a good hire 6 or 7 years ago, but now I'm not sure. He is a Virginia guy and east coast guy. I wonder if he has ever recruited Texas at all. UVA recruited nationwide, so maybe he did. I'd still rather have J Tubbs.

I'd put more stock in it if the author wasn't a moron who can't get his facts straight. Copeland hired Dement; he didn't inherit him.

I loved Jones as a player in the late 70s, but he ran UVAs program into the ground as a coach. He knows basketball, but he literally started recruiting a bunch of thugs. If you want to read about SMU players getting caught shoplifting every week, by all means, hire Jeff Jones.