So Washington State’s Tony Bennett is out. So is recently fired Chicago Bulls coach Scott Skiles, who lives in Bloomington but will be reminded upon his return to college basketball of his numerous run-ins with the law while a player at Michigan State.

And for the love of all that is holy, so is Isiah Thomas, who has expressed a desire to do for his old college team what he did for the Indiana Pacers, the Continental Basketball Association and the New York Knicks. (Thomas didn’t mean “run it into the ground.”)

That leaves four candidates: Ron Hunter, IUPUI; Brad Brownell, Wright State; Chris Lowery, Southern Illinois, and Scott Drew, Baylor.

Hunter is not an Indiana native, technically, but he has coached at IUPUI since 1994, rebuffing other offers in part because of his desire to stay in the Indianapolis area, only an hour or so drive from Bloomington. Brad Brownell is an Evansville native and DePauw (Ind.) graduate who has popped up on numerous “hot coach” lists. Chris Lowery played on the same Evansville Harrison team as Calbert Cheaney, the all-time leading scoring for Indiana and the Big Ten. He also succeeded current Purdue coach Matt Painter at Southern Illinois, which would add an interesting twist to the Indiana-Purdue rivalry.

The best candidate may well be Drew, son of Valparaiso coach Homer and brother of former Crusaders’ Sweet Sixteen hero and NBA player Bryce.

Drew, a Butler graduate, would have no trouble turning around an Indiana program that next year might be on probation and definitely will be without Big Ten leading scorer Eric Gordon (who’ll declare for the NBA), Big Ten leading rebounder D.J. White (who is a senior) and whomever else decides to leave in the wake of Sampson’s departure.

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Drew stepped into the steaming cesspool that was Baylor after Dave Bliss was bounced for numerous violation, including an attempt to get his assistants to portray as a drug dealer a player that had been murdered by another player. The program was on probation when Drew started in 2003, and it will be until 2010. One season, his team could only play conference game. Yet Drew, who set up Valparaiso’s international recruiting pipeline while assisting his father, has convinced enough talent to come to Baylor that his team is 17-8 and in the middle of the pack in the Big 12. Even with having lost five of their last six games, Drew's Bears seem assured of a postseason bid.

Now that’s the kind of coaching excitement Indiana could use.

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