The Butterfly Effect of ACU Beating Texas in the NCAA Tournament [Gallery]
When ACU and Texas tipped off in the NCAA Tournament, two things were certain. The state of Texas was going to win its 6th opening-round game and lose its first. By the time ACU closed out its major upset victory, the stage had been set for five different college basketball teams in the state to have new head coaches by the end of April.
Some might call it the ripple effect. Let's say a rock hits a pond and ripples emanate from the center. The same phenomenon is also called Butterfly Effect or the Chaos Theory famously described by Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park and explored by Ashton Kutcher in the aptly named Butterfly Effect.
The ripples from the Texas loss have loomed large. Three schools hired coaches from another Texas program. Three schools promoted lead assistants. All five head coaching jobs were ripple effects of Joe Golding and the ACU Wildcats beating Shaka Smart and the Texas Longhorns.
The ACU vs Texas Butterfly Effect
I'm going to jump to the end of the timeline first if you'll allow me to go full Fight Club: "This all began with a man named Joe Golding." That's right, the man who outdueled Shaka Smart, nailing his Austin coffin shut, took the job at UTEP on April 13th. A job only opened because the UTEP head coach was hired by the new Longhorns coach. A coach hired because Smart left and went to Marquette.
Make sense?
Much like the Texas Tech vacancy, the ACU job opening was filled by an assistant that was vouched for by a player on Twitter. Brette Tanner, come on down! UTA also hired their assistant to take over for a departing head coach. Where did the UTA coach go? Austin. Where else would he mosey?
To recap: since ACU beat Texas, these programs have new head coaches: Marquette, Texas, Texas Tech, UTEP, UTA, and ACU.
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