by Colin Rajala
Q: What were your expectations for the team this past season after losing the four seniors to graduation and how do you think they fared?
A: We lost a lot coming into the season. When you have one of the best classes we’ve had here at Seton Hall, not only great players, but great people and ambassadors for the school you obviously think that you are going to be in somewhat of a rebuilding mode. We still had some really good players and really great student athletes coming back, so I still had high hopes, but to be honest, did I think we would do what we did? No. If you had told me before the season started that we would beat Kentucky at MSG and Maryland at Maryland, finish third in the league and make the tournament again, I would have signed on in a second.
It was such a great year, such an exciting year. It is so much fun to watch our team because we have had many exciting games the last four years.
It also helps when you have Myles Powell, who clearly emerged this year as one of the best players in the country. He is an absolutely electrifying young man to watch.
The way that Myles could completely take over a game this year, I haven’t seen that happen too many times since I have been watching college basketball.
Q: Following another successful season with the program’s fourth consecutive tournament bid, Kevin Willard’s name popped up as a serious candidate for the Virginia Tech job. What is your take on these programs looking to Big East coaches in their succession plans?
You saw Ed Cooley mentioned for the Michigan job, Greg McDermott’s name popped up with Ohio State previously, obviously Kevin and Virginia Tech. How important is it to have Kevin and the other coaches staying with their schools in conference?
A: I will actually answer in some broader terms as I have never been one to speak directly about an individual coach and opportunities that they have been presented with. I think that is up to the person to speak on that.
I say this having just gotten back from the Big East meetings last week down in Florida. Until you go to a Big East meeting with the basketball coaches and athletic directors and sit in the room and go to the dinners and see the interactions within the league, it is really hard to understand.
What I am saying is that is the reason why we are seeing coaches stick around in this league. All of the basketball metrics are there. Our conference tournament is the best tournament in the country, our strength of schedule across the board is great, our RPIs are great, we have won two of the last three national championships, half the league is making the tournament, so all of the on court things are fantastic.
All of the other stuff makes these coaches realize what a special thing we have going here. This league was built on the head coaches and great student-athletes and it always has been. You go back to the old days of P.J. and all of the premier coaches back then and now we currently are paralleling that with all of these great coaches and players we have in conference.
The camaraderie, the bonds, to be in a league focused on basketball is unparalleled. There is nothing wrong with football, but not having football allows us to focus on and allow basketball to be the flagship programs across the league. The benefit of that we have seen just this off season, coaches are turning down jobs at the football-five level because they look at those jobs and they don’t believe those jobs are better than what they have now.
Some coaches are going to go, it’s just the nature of the beast, but to see coaches turning down jobs at football-five schools just shows what the league is all about.
In my career, I have never seen ADs and basketball coaches align like I have seen in this league. You add that on top of a partner like Fox, who is at our meetings sitting at the table and part of the Big East family, and it’s really something special and that is something that we all reiterated last week – there is nothing like what the Big East is about, especially right now.
Q: In these head coach vacancy situations in the off season it seems like a lot of the attention is focused on the candidates’ on court and on the recruiting trail track record, as well as the optics of them leaving or staying with their current programs, but it is evident the behind the scenes optics really matter and the off the court alignment of values gives more credence to coaches staying in their current positions.
A: To further that point, when you have ten coaches and ten athletic directors together at the meetings every May, the bonds that each head coach has with each of their respective ADs is really something that I think is unusual. When you are one of the top one, two or three basketball leagues in the country and when you’re a school like a Big East program, because you don’t have the football those relationships and those bonds can be formed between a head coach and an AD. It goes a long way too; nothing works if you don’t have a good working relationship with one of the most visible people in the athletic department and basketball coach.
I’m fresh off the league meetings and I continue to come back stunned about how much of a family atmosphere the league shares. I said this last week in our meetings, two years ago we had an issue at Providence. It was an unfortunate situation out of their control where it was a freak day in the wintertime with 75 degree weather and the court was a mess. It took all of 30 seconds between Ed Cooley, Kevin Willard, Bob Driscoll and myself to say you know what, ‘let’s go to Providence’s campus tomorrow and let’s finish this game.’
If those bonds aren’t solidified, if those friendships aren’t there, if that collectively isn’t there, that could have turned into an absolute mess to try and decide on what to do next. You could have had a team say it’s your responsibility and you should forfeit, or you should come to our place. Instead, it was we will do that for you because we know you would do that for us.
Q: What were your expectations for the team this past season after losing the four seniors to graduation and how do you think they fared?
A: We lost a lot coming into the season. When you have one of the best classes we’ve had here at Seton Hall, not only great players, but great people and ambassadors for the school you obviously think that you are going to be in somewhat of a rebuilding mode. We still had some really good players and really great student athletes coming back, so I still had high hopes, but to be honest, did I think we would do what we did? No. If you had told me before the season started that we would beat Kentucky at MSG and Maryland at Maryland, finish third in the league and make the tournament again, I would have signed on in a second.
It was such a great year, such an exciting year. It is so much fun to watch our team because we have had many exciting games the last four years.
It also helps when you have Myles Powell, who clearly emerged this year as one of the best players in the country. He is an absolutely electrifying young man to watch.
The way that Myles could completely take over a game this year, I haven’t seen that happen too many times since I have been watching college basketball.
Q: Following another successful season with the program’s fourth consecutive tournament bid, Kevin Willard’s name popped up as a serious candidate for the Virginia Tech job. What is your take on these programs looking to Big East coaches in their succession plans?
You saw Ed Cooley mentioned for the Michigan job, Greg McDermott’s name popped up with Ohio State previously, obviously Kevin and Virginia Tech. How important is it to have Kevin and the other coaches staying with their schools in conference?
A: I will actually answer in some broader terms as I have never been one to speak directly about an individual coach and opportunities that they have been presented with. I think that is up to the person to speak on that.
I say this having just gotten back from the Big East meetings last week down in Florida. Until you go to a Big East meeting with the basketball coaches and athletic directors and sit in the room and go to the dinners and see the interactions within the league, it is really hard to understand.
What I am saying is that is the reason why we are seeing coaches stick around in this league. All of the basketball metrics are there. Our conference tournament is the best tournament in the country, our strength of schedule across the board is great, our RPIs are great, we have won two of the last three national championships, half the league is making the tournament, so all of the on court things are fantastic.
All of the other stuff makes these coaches realize what a special thing we have going here. This league was built on the head coaches and great student-athletes and it always has been. You go back to the old days of P.J. and all of the premier coaches back then and now we currently are paralleling that with all of these great coaches and players we have in conference.
The camaraderie, the bonds, to be in a league focused on basketball is unparalleled. There is nothing wrong with football, but not having football allows us to focus on and allow basketball to be the flagship programs across the league. The benefit of that we have seen just this off season, coaches are turning down jobs at the football-five level because they look at those jobs and they don’t believe those jobs are better than what they have now.
Some coaches are going to go, it’s just the nature of the beast, but to see coaches turning down jobs at football-five schools just shows what the league is all about.
In my career, I have never seen ADs and basketball coaches align like I have seen in this league. You add that on top of a partner like Fox, who is at our meetings sitting at the table and part of the Big East family, and it’s really something special and that is something that we all reiterated last week – there is nothing like what the Big East is about, especially right now.
Q: In these head coach vacancy situations in the off season it seems like a lot of the attention is focused on the candidates’ on court and on the recruiting trail track record, as well as the optics of them leaving or staying with their current programs, but it is evident the behind the scenes optics really matter and the off the court alignment of values gives more credence to coaches staying in their current positions.
A: To further that point, when you have ten coaches and ten athletic directors together at the meetings every May, the bonds that each head coach has with each of their respective ADs is really something that I think is unusual. When you are one of the top one, two or three basketball leagues in the country and when you’re a school like a Big East program, because you don’t have the football those relationships and those bonds can be formed between a head coach and an AD. It goes a long way too; nothing works if you don’t have a good working relationship with one of the most visible people in the athletic department and basketball coach.
I’m fresh off the league meetings and I continue to come back stunned about how much of a family atmosphere the league shares. I said this last week in our meetings, two years ago we had an issue at Providence. It was an unfortunate situation out of their control where it was a freak day in the wintertime with 75 degree weather and the court was a mess. It took all of 30 seconds between Ed Cooley, Kevin Willard, Bob Driscoll and myself to say you know what, ‘let’s go to Providence’s campus tomorrow and let’s finish this game.’
If those bonds aren’t solidified, if those friendships aren’t there, if that collectively isn’t there, that could have turned into an absolute mess to try and decide on what to do next. You could have had a team say it’s your responsibility and you should forfeit, or you should come to our place. Instead, it was we will do that for you because we know you would do that for us.
