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I love Scotty Thurman. You love Scotty Thurman. Every Razorback has to love Scotty Thurman by law. Unless you're only about 10 years old, and even then, it's time you start learning to love Scotty Thurman.
Mike Anderson certainly does too, as according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report, he is promoting Thurman to a full time assistant coaching position on his staff and moving longtime assistant Matt Zimmerman into an administrative position.
Thurman has been the radio analyst for Razorback basketball the last couple of seasons and has spent six years as Director of Student Athlete Development. He holds a masters degree from UALR has has taught classes at UA in recent years.
Of course, Thurman is most well-known from his playing days at Arkansas, in which he became one of the Razorbacks' most popular players in any sport ever. In addition to hitting the go-ahead shot in the 1994 national championship game, Thurman hit several other clutch shots and ended his career as a top 10 all time scorer for the Hogs.
All that being said, he's never been a coach before. He's never recruited before. Several fans have hoped Anderson would shake up his staff on some level after five mostly frustrating years at Arkansas and inconsistent recruiting success, but it's somewhat surprising that, instead of trying to hire someone with proven recruiting or coaching success, he brings in Thurman, who has already been on staff the entire time Anderson's been back at Arkansas.
It shouldn't be a total surprise. Anderson himself was a former player for Nolan Richardson before joining Richardson's staff and beginning his coaching career. Now two of the coaches on his staff, Thurman and T.J. Cleveland will likewise be Anderson's own former players. That's not likely a coincidence.
Every Razorback fan is cheering for this to work. This is the first change in Anderson's coaching staff since 2007 when Cleveland joined his staff at Missouri, so it's something of an experiment. Hopefully Thurman proves to be a great recruiter and everything will be fantastic.