For the second time since 2021, Central Michigan is going shopping for a new head men’s basketball coach. But the search might be a little different.

Last time, in 2021, then-new athletic director Amy Folan prioritized head-coaching experience when she hired former UTEP and Auburn head coach Tony Barbee, even as a handful of influential alums were pushing really hard to bring back one of their own ? or, at least, someone with strong ties to the state.

Don’t be surprised if this search, following Barbee’s firing Thursday night after four up-and-down seasons, takes a different direction, possibly starting with an assistant coach at Michigan State.

Jon Borovich’s name quickly started making the rounds Thursday night as a serious candidate to be the next coach at CMU, where he played from 1997-2001 and was a two-time captain.

Borovich was a popular suggestion among alums four years ago, after CMU fired head coach Keno Davis. At the time, Borovich was on staff at Northwestern, before he joined Tom Izzo’s staff at Michigan State in 2022, first as the program’s director of recruiting operations, then as an assistant coach.

Borovich was promoted to assistant coach in the summer of 2024, after Mark Montgomery left to become the head coach at Detroit Mercy.

Borovich, 43, a Bloomfield Hills native, spent three years on staff at Northwestern, and before that he spent eight years at Northern Illinois, working under Montgomery. He also has worked on staffs at Dayton and Oakland. He got his coaching start at Michigan State, as a graduate assistant from 2001-03.

He doesn’t have head-coaching experience, but his coaching and recruiting chops are highly regarded. That’s key at CMU, which has been a big victim of the transfer portal in recent years, with constant roster turnover from year to year.

Barbee came with an impressive resume, including a long stint as an assistant under John Calipari at Kentucky, but he had just one winning season in four years at CMU. His team missed the MAC tournament this past season, amid a pattern of close loses and a rough finishing stretch.

Barbee was fired with a year left on his contract and will receive a $300,000 buyout. The buyout dropped from $400,000 on April 1, and Barbee was told he was being fired after landing in San Antonio for the Final Four on Thursday afternoon. His assistants remain under contract through the end of the month.

Folan’s first big hire at CMU was Barbee. Late last year, Folan hired a new head football coach in Matt Drinkall, who was a longtime assistant at Army. Drinkall had head-coaching experience, but at the lower levels. Drinkall is a culture guy and already has drawn rave reviews for the changes he’s made on that front in Mt. Pleasant. Folan certainly will be looking for a similar hire in men’s basketball, which hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2003.

Here are some other potential candidates to watch:

Todd Simon, Bowling Green, head coach: A Fowler native and CMU alum, he was a candidate for the job four years ago, when he was head coach at Southern Utah. In the spring of 2023, he was hired at Bowling Green. His first season with the Falcons, they went 20-14, before dropping to 14-18 this past season. He is 44.

Chris Fowler, Western Michigan, associate head coach: He was a four-time captain at CMU from 2012-16 and finished as the school’s assists leader. Before WMU, the Southfield native and Country Day alum was at Northern Arizona and Michigan State, where Fowler, 32, was a grad assistant.

Jeff Smith, Oakland, associate head coach: One of the top and tireless mid-major recruiters in the state if not the entire country, Smith has never been a head coach at this level. But the Carson City native surely deserves some consideration. Smith, 52, had two stints at CMU, from 1997-2002 and 2012-19.

Hassan Nizam, Central Michigan, assistant coach: The Dearborn native has some very strong recruiting ties to the state, and he made a powerhouse out of Macomb Community College before joining CMU in 2023. He’s only 30, so perhaps a DII head-coaching gig first would be best.

Steve Hawkins, Southern Illinois, associate head coach: He certainly knows about the big rivalry, as the longtime head coach at Western Michigan made the NCAA Tournament twice in his 17 seasons in Kalamazoo. Hawkins, 62, doesn’t consider himself done being a head coach in Division I basketball.