Published June 20, Updated June 24

In an absolutely stunning move that is certain to draw major criticism and plenty of chuckles from coast to coast, USC inexplicably hired Kevin O’Neill to be its next head basketball coach Saturday. Kevin O’Neill? That Kevin O’Neill?

Surely this is a joke, right? If it isn’t, then the joke is clearly on USC and most notably, AD Mike Garrett.

From Tuscon to Evanston to Knoxville, they are getting a serious kick out of this one. O’Neill has held 16 jobs during his 31-year career. Translation: His combustible personality gets real old real fast.

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Let’s be clear on one thing, however. There’s no questioning O’Neill’s basketball acumen. You don’t get four head-coaching jobs in the college ranks (five if you count his one-year stay at Arizona as the interim head coach) and one in the NBA (with the Toronto Raptors) without knowing the game.

And he does fit the clean-with-the-NCAA-boys profile that Garrett had to go by with this hire. But O’Neill? Kevin Freakin’ O’Neill?

His career record at Marquette, Tennessee and Northwestern is below .500. His players at Arizona a couple of years ago and at every other stop have despised him.

When he was at UT and I would watch his teams at the SEC Tournament, it was clear that his players would just assume punch him than dive after a loose ball in his honor.

Bottom line: O’Neill is atrocious at the communications game. He can X and O with the best of ‘em, but what good does that do if your players don’t want to sell out for the head coach?

To be fair to Garrett, he had a tough sell following Tim Floyd’s shameful departure. According to multiple reports, Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and UNLV’s Lon Kruger turned down inquiries. But we can’t give him a pass on that basis.

Even with NCAA sanctions looming and a roster ripped to shreds by recent exits, Garrett could’ve found a better coach. He certainly could’ve found a better person and without a doubt, there was someone out there that was a better fit. O’Neill’s fit to be in the NBA, not college.

As I gathered my thoughts upon hearing this news early Saturday afternoon, the only comparable situation that came to mind was at the University of Florida in 1990. Just weeks before the regular season was to start, Norm Sloan and his staff of Monte Towe, Kenny McCraney and Phil Weber was sent packing from Gainesville amid an NCAA investigation.

At the time, former Tennessee coach Don Devoe was in retirement. The Gators offered him the job on an interim basis and Devoe accepted. After all, the roster was stockpiled with talented players like Dwayne Schintzius, Livingston Chatman, Renaldo Garcia and Dwayne Davis.

Several weeks later, Schintzius and Chatman quit the team because they couldn’t tolerate Devoe’s no-nonsense style. In fact, Schintzius went so far as to say this in announcing that he was leaving:

No one can argue that Coach Sloan and Coach Towe (Monte Towe, Sloan's assistant) were easy to play for, and to them you had to accept the coach as the absolute authority and their word as final; but that does not mean I must sail under the authority of Captain Ahab. If you can play for Coach Sloan, you can play for almost anyone, almost anyone.

Meet your new coach, USC fans. His name is Kevin O’Neill. You can call him Captain Ahab or Captain A-Hole. Either works.

And it says here that his stay in Tinseltown will be similar to Devoe’s time in Hogtown – short, ugly and forgettable.

Brian Edwards can be reached at briane@vegasinsider.com.