Friar Basketball

20 in 60: #6 New Faces in New England’s Big Places

NEcoaches

The face of New England basketball is changing.  In just two short years a hall of fame coach is gone from Connecticut, Boston College replaced their all-time leader in wins, Rhode Island dismissed the man who led their program for more than a decade, and Providence returned a hometown hero after an unsuccessful three year run by his predecessor.  With varying levels of buzz, expectation, and experience, four men are at the helm of New England’s top teams at a time in which the face of the region could be changing.

Providence fans are well versed in Ed Cooley’s resume – here is a look at his New England contemporaries.

 

Steve Donahue, Boston College: Entering just his third season at the Heights, Donahue is the longest-tenured head coach on the list.  His reputation was built in the Ivy League, a conference long dominated by Pennsylvania and Princeton.  No program but Penn or Princeton had won back to back league titles in the last 50 years until Donahue led Cornell to the top of the Ivies in his final three seasons.  His stock officially exploded in the spring of 2010 when he led Cornell on a shocking NCAA Tournament run, defeating Temple and Wisconsin before falling to a loaded Kentucky team featuring John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins in the Sweet 16.  It didn’t take long for BC to pounce once the season closed.

Donahue was hired by the Eagles, over then-Fairfield head coach Ed Cooley and Northeastern’s Bill Coen (both Cooley and Coen were Al Skinner assistants), in the spring of 2010.

Taking over a program that had made the NCAA Tournament in five of the seven seasons prior to his arrival, Donahue saw his team take a step back last season after winning 21 games and falling in the second round of the NIT in his first.  Leading a team devoid of ACC talent or experience, Donahue’s Eagles dropped to 9-22 in 2011-12.  Compounding matters for Donahue was the preseason departure of top assistant Joe Jones, who left the program to take over at Boston University.

The loss of Jones meant the departure of BC’s top recruiter, and Donahue has been knocked in local recruiting circles for his failure to add a proven high-level recruiter to his staff.  Still, Donahue has the beginnings of a solid core.

Former top 100 recruit Ryan Anderson is a 6’8 combo forward out of California who really emerged late last season.  Perhaps best described as BC’s LaDontae Henton, the freshman Anderson was regularly putting up fat stat-lines throughout the back-end of the schedule against top notch opposition (22 and 12 vs. NC State, 22 and 10 vs. Maryland, 21 and 8 vs. Duke).  Fellow frosh Dennis Clifford is a seven footer who prefers doing his damage in the paint – a rarity with young big men today – and did so more efficiently than recruiting pundits anticipated in his first season.  Clifford and Anderson give Donahue two steady regulars, with the capability to be much more if Anderson continues to blossom.

Donahue will look to load up on shooters, and he may have found the ideal point guard to run his offense in incoming freshman Oliver Hanlan.  The Canadian spent the past two seasons at New Hampton and was tremendous running the show last season.  He’s a very underrated lead guard who should step in and give BC big minutes from the start.  Hanlan plays with maturity beyond his years and is one of the best passers in the class of 2012.

BC will build around these three and hope to supplement them with knock down shooters while they continue to look to upgrade their talent level.  It’s going to be very difficult for BC to compete in the ACC after the conference adds Syracuse and Pittsburgh next season, however.  Donahue certainly will have his hands full.

 

Dan Hurley, Rhode Island: Outside of Cooley, no other coach on this list has captured the imagination of the fanbase like Hurley has.  A former Big East standout, the son of perhaps the best high school basketball coach in American history, and the brother of one of the NCAA’s all-time great performers, he certainly comes with the lineage.

Hurley spent nine years at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, New Jersey building the program into a national power.  He went an astounding 223-21 in nine seasons there, coaching four McDonald’s All Americans, including New York Knicks guard JR Smith.

Hurley spent time at Rutgers as an assistant coach and eventually landed at Wagner, where the team finished 5-26 the year prior to his arrival.  Just two years later they closed with 25 wins, including a shocking road victory over Pittsburgh.  What looked to be a four to five year rebuild was done in just two – enough for Rhode Island to pounce on the 39 year old.

Hurley comes to URI at potentially the perfect time.  The Atlantic 10 is upgrading its basketball talent and the league’s conference championship tournament will be hosted at the new home of the Brooklyn Nets.  For a coach with terrific Tri-state connections the additional exposure will only serve to further boost a strong recruiting outfit.

His staff has proven they can recruit outside of the northeast already, however.  Assistant coach Preston Murphy was key in landing springy 6’9 Michigan power forward Jordan Hare under Jim Baron, and the Rams were able to keep the highly regarded freshman in the fold through the coaching change – a huge early win.

The big jump should come next season, as Rutgers transfer Gil Biruta will be eligible to play and he’ll be joined by an impressive haul that includes Michigan guard EC Matthews (a top 100 prospect per ESPN) and New York city wing Hassan Martin.  Scarier still, Kevin McNamara of the Providence Journal reported this week that URI is involved with top 100 big man Dominic Woodson out of Texas.  Woodson is being pursued by elite schools, thanks to his massive build (6’9, 260 pounds of muscle) and good athleticism.  He’s still raw offensively, but has high potential as a glass cleaner.

No other coach on this list comes to a situation as similar to Cooley’s than Hurley.  Rhode Island never made the NCAA Tournament in Baron’s tenure (which started in 2000) and also had players who faced legal issues prior to his arrival.  The Rams finished just 7-24 last season, and while a one year turn-around isn’t expected, Hurley figures to have them far more competitive in year two.  With his brother and Murphy on staff he has a young, but connected, group that should lead to a talent influx.

 

Kevin Ollie, Connecticut: Ollie’s situation is far more unique than any of his New England counterparts.  He takes over a national program from a hall of fame coach who built a program from ground-up to won three national titles.  Ollie’s coaching experience?  The past two seasons on the bench under Jim Calhoun. Unlike Cooley, Donahue or Hurley — all locked into long-term deals — Ollie was signed to a one year contract at the time of Calhoun’s retirement this fall.

He takes over a team that is ineligible for postseason play in 2012-13, thanks to falling short of the APR standard set by the NCAA.

Still, Ollie hops into the program with immediate name recognition and will be supported by a coaching staff made up for three former D1 head coaches in George Blaney, Glen Miller and Karl Hobbs.  Their head coaching experience dwarfs that of the assistants at Providence, URI and Boston College.  His roster is small, but isn’t without talent.

Sophomore guard Ryan Boatright projects to be one of the best scorers in the Big East, Shabazz Napier is an experienced junior who is more than capable of stepping into a bigger role after the departures of Jeremy Lamb and Andre Drummond, while incoming freshman Omar Calhoun is a top 40 talent out of New York City.  The frontcourt could be an issue this season, but Ollie is a solid recruiter who should be able to add depth there going forward.

UConn already has a commitment in hand from one-time PC recruit Kentan Facey (a Long Island power forward who sneaks his way into ESPN’s top 100 at 99) and they’ll at least have an outside shot with the nation’s top player in Jabari Parker, who will have an in-home with Ollie.  Some have called Parker, a Chicago native, the best high school prospect since Lebron James.

Experience will certainly be an early knock on the new Connecticut head man, and a fair one, but one needs to look no further than Fred Hoiberg at Iowa State to see an example of a long-time NBA veteran who returned to his alma mater and found success in his first head coaching gig.  Ollie brings contacts from 13 years in the NBA and the strong endorsement of Calhoun who has emphasized the importance of his successor being a member of the UConn family.

Whether or not Ollie can continue to extend the family with NBA prospects will be one of the more intriguing New England storylines to follow.

 

Email Kevin at kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

 

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