I don’t pretend to know who will be named Eastern men’s basketball head coach in mid-April. One may remember on the day he was canned, I predicted it would be Rick Samuels – so my crystal ball is foggy.

The list of those who have applied continues to grow and includes Marquette assistant coach Jeff Strohm (Eastern alum and native of Marshall), Illinois-Chicago assistant Mark Coomes, Creighton assistant Greg Grensing and Illinois assistant Jay Price.

Personally, I have to side with my colleague Marcus Jackson’s suggestion of Glenbrook North head coach Dave Weber. Regardless of the perceptions of hiring a high school coach, he’s qualified.

Whoever it is, I want to send a suggestion to him about next year’s recruiting class: I want to have trouble pronouncing every signee’s name.

It would be great to stumble around the last name of the recruit like Ted Kennedy at a Congress Christmas party.

WEIU-TV play-by-play broadcaster Mike Bradd should have to say the name 3,000 times before going on the air.

In a matter of two words – go foreign.

I learn something new every year I watch the NCAA Tournament. This year, it was Bucknell University failing to send a band but successfully convincing the Oklahoma State section to wear orange “Bucknell Bison” shirts and play for it in its second round contest against Wisconsin.

The major realization of this season’s March Madness was the ability of foreign-born players to dominate.

Currently, 71 players from 32 foreign countries and Puerto Rico are playing on the tournament’s 65 teams. This includes 10 from Australia, 10 from Canada, five from Brazil and four from Germany.

For mid-major programs such as Old Dominion, Pacific and Saint Mary’s, landing a skilled player from a foreign country can be the difference between playing in the NCAA tournament and being where the Panthers are now.

One of the main reasons the Pacific Tigers are one of the nation’s best mid-majors is because junior forward Christian Maraker got on a bus in Sweden more than five years ago.

Maraker was attending high school a couple of hours from his parents’ home and decided to visit them one weekend during the summer of 2000, the same time Pacific was playing a tour of games in the country.

“It has been great for our team,” Pacific head coach Bob Thomason told the Washington Post. “This mixture of players has really worked out well. The American kids don’t understand me when I’m coaching anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter if the other kids do, either.”

Old Dominion also found a good player when forward-center Alex Loughton of Perth, Australia signed. Loughton, who is 6-foot-9, averaged 13.9 points and 8.1 rebounds.

A lot of talented foreign-born players are playing high school basketball in the United States, so it doesn’t take a plane trip to find them.

Also, foreign players see college basketball in Charleston as an opportunity instead of a second choice.

Once we actually hire a coach who gets a staff together, he will have little time to fill every scholarship with solid domestic players.

Maybe placing a call to Eastern’s all-time leading scorer Henry Domercant and requesting some of Turkey’s best amateur players would be a solid place to start – maybe even leading him back to a assistant coaching position.

To the next coach of the Panthers, celebrate. Take a cruise and don’t be afraid to bring some players back.