That’s what Lehigh athletic director Joe Sterrett has to say about head basketball coach Billy Taylor’s decision to accept the head coaching position at Ball State. Coaching searches are never easy when you start less than a month before classes begin. It’s a tough blow to a team that’s returning four starters next year.

The Ball State saga, you might recall, involved the resignation of Ronny Thompson after it was discovered that he attended voluntary offseason workouts (an NCAA violation) and lied about it afterwards. Then it got uglier, with Thompson’s lawyer claiming that he left not because of the NCAA investigation, but because of a “racially hostile work environment.” Thompson’s concerns apparently didn’t phase Taylor. I bet Joe Sterrett wishes that they did.

As Hoop Time points out, it was always assumed that Taylor would take off sooner or later, although I doubt anyone guessed it would happen in the middle of August. Now the search for someone else’s bad timing begins.

UPDATE: The search ends as Lehigh stays in-house, promoting Brett Reed.