Winless start costs Tucker his job

McALLEN — Steve Tucker won’t be given the opportunity to follow through on his guarantee that the Rio Grande Valley Silverados will win their next home game.

That’s because the expansion Silverados announced the firing of the veteran coach Saturday before their game at Great Falls. At the time of the announcement, the Silverados were in the midst of a 0-10 start to the 2007-08 Continental Basketball Association season.

Derrick Rowland, an assistant on Oklahoma Cavalry coach Micheal Ray Richardson’s staff, has taken over the coaching duties on an interim basis.

“It was a performance-based decision,” Silverados co-owner Kevin Mitchell said. “We made the final decision (Friday) after we had interviews and came to the conclusion with the coach that we hired.”

Tucker, who was also the team’s director of basketball operations and thus put together the roster that started 0-10, was unavailable for comment Saturday, but Mitchell said he took the news hard. Before the season started Tucker said it was “his dream” to coach in the CBA, and after 30-plus seasons as a basketball coach he was finally able to realize his career aspiration.

Then after the Silverados dropped to 0-3 following a 107-91 loss to Yakama on Thanksgiving Day at the McAllen Convention Center, Tucker told the assembled crowd he guaranteed the team would win its next home game, a Dec. 12 contest against Atlanta. Little did he know the Silverados would start their upcoming nine-game road trip 0-7 and he’d be out of a job, never having the opportunity to make good on his promise.

Tucker is the second big-name casualty of the team’s disappointing start, as general manager David Sykes recently was let go and replaced by Norge Stout.

Rowland matriculated with Richardson to the expansion Cavalry this season after helping the former NBA star coach the Albany Patroons to the 2006-07 CBA championship series. Rowland coached the final two games of that series when Richardson was suspended by the team for making alleged anti-Semitic remarks. Rowland also is the all-time leading scorer in Patroons franchise history.

“He’s been in the CBA for a while, and we felt we needed to go with somebody with CBA experience and who understands the players and what it takes for us to win at that level right now,” Mitchell said. “Right now we want to turn things around and let him make the decisions he needs to make, and hopefully get us straightened out and pointed in the right direction.”

At the time of Tucker’s firing the Silverados’ field-goal percentage defense was the worst in the CBA as they were allowing opponents to shoot 54.8 percent from the field. RGV also ranked last in turnovers, committing a whopping 22 per game.

The Silverados played at Great Falls on Saturday and again today before returning home to face the Atlanta Krunk on Wednesday.

Silverados co-owner/president Art Gonzalez is traveling with the team and was unavailable for comment.

Todd Mavreles is the Deputy Sports Editor for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4451.