When Florida Atlantic fired Mike Jarvis, Florida assistant coach Matt McCall’s name was floated as a possible replacement.
McCall was an assistant under Jarvis at FAU from 2008-11 before being hired by the Gators when assistant Richard Pitino left for Louisville.
But as of Wednesday, McCall said he has not been contacted by FAU. McCall, 33, said whomever the Owls consider could be walking into a good opportunity. In McCall’s last season as an assistant at FAU (2010-11), the Owls went 21-11 and won the Sun Belt regular season conference title. But the Owls failed to win the Sun Belt Conference tournament and went to the NIT. FAU moved from the Sun Belt to Conference USA last spring.
“There’s so few head coaching jobs out there,” McCall said. “It’s in the Conference USA. Who doesn’t like to live in Boca Raton? It’s a great place to live and I think there’s an enormous amount of talent in this state, mid-major players, high-major minus players, with the right talent … and we proved it when we were down there in winning the Sun Belt, you get the right group of guys and we did it predominantly with kids from the state of Florida, you can win.”
McCall said he felt bad for Jarvis, who gave him his first opportunity in coaching. At FAU, McCall was instrumental in recruiting several in-state players to the Owls, including former Gainesville High standout Greg Gantt, who left FAU as the school’s all-time leader in scoring.
This business is a cutthroat business,” McCall said. “When we were down there we had a tremendous amount of success and were able to win a conference title there. He’s always been very, very good to me and I’m very grateful to coach for the chance he gave me when I was coming off being director of basketball operations here at Florida. I wish him nothing but the best.”
