Friar Basketball

Did BC Make a Mistake?

CooleyClapping1

Did Boston College make a mistake?

It’s been less than three years since Steve Donahue led Cornell to the Sweet Sixteen in 2010’s NCAA Tournament and was hired a month later by BC to replace the school’s all-time winningest coach, and Ed Cooley mentor, Al Skinner.

Cooley was one of three finalists for the BC job that spring, but the feeling at the time was that Boston College wanted a clean break from the Al Skinner era, and few argued with the hiring of Donahue after he’d taken Cornell to back to back NCAA Tournaments.

A year later Providence hired Cooley, and while Donahue had a year (and a 21 win season) under his belt at BC when Cooley started rebuilding the Friars, both started from the ground up in the spring of 2011, as Donahue graduated all five of his starters.

That summer I wrote an article comparing the rebuilding projects Providence and BC had ahead of them.  For Donahue and the Eagles it was a system change, while Cooley and the Friars faced a more daunting challenge — a complete cultural overhaul.

With BC and Providence set to go at it on Saturday afternoon, it’s an appropriate time to look back on what was written then and how the two programs have compared since.

Starting Anew:

While Donahue has a year under his belt, BC is virtually starting over this season.  Both teams’ star players from a season ago went in the first round of the NBA Draft (Marshon Brooks to the Nets, Reggie Jackson to Oklahoma City).

Not only does BC lose Jackson, but all five of their top scorers from a season ago (Joe Trapani, Corey Raji, Biko Paris, and Josh Southern have all graduated).

The top returning scorer for the Eagles is Danny Rubin, a sophomore-to-be who put up a mere 4.1 points per game.

While Ed Cooley has more experience returning this season, his rebuilding job runs much deeper than Donahue’s, as he is not only trying to find players that fit in his system, but also provide a facelift to a program that was left in shambles by the time he took over.

Put simply, Donahue’s rebuilding effort revolves around implementing his system and finding players that fit in it, Cooley is starting from the ground up in all facets: system, talent, academics, and reputation.

The verdict: Cooley’s overhaul of both the roster and reputation of the program in a year and a half has been astounding.  Providence was an absolute mess on and off the court and he’s restored order and suddenly made them a formidable recruiting presence.  Where this program is versus where it was in the spring of 2011 is night and day.

After the Eagles improved to 21 wins under Donahue in his first season, they took an expected step back welcoming so many new faces last year, but a rough start this one has included a loss to Bryant and an overtime victory versus New Hampshire.

Friar fans feel their program is on the way up, while those at BC are in wait-and-see mode in Donahue’s third year.

 

Recruiting:

Minus a few exceptions, Boston College has not recruited well in New England over the past decade.  Both Jared Dudley and Craig Smith were California kids, Troy Bell was a Minnesota find, Ryan Sidney a Michigan sleeper, Tyrese Rice hailed from Virginia, and Jackson was out of Colorado.

When Donahue took over he set out to change that, reaching out to some of the most influential prep and AAU coaches in the region, including Leo Papile of the BABC, the New England Playaz’ TJ Gassnola, Dave Lubick of St. Mark’s, and others.

With the sudden emergence of elite talent hailing from New England, a Boston College staff that more actively pursues local talent will only make the job harder for Cooley and company.

The Eagles were in heavy pursuit of several Friar targets, including Kris Dunn, Jake Layman, Zach Auguste, and Wayne Selden, but the departure of associate head coach Joe Jones to Boston University may have slowed their momentum some, as the Eagles are being mentioned less with the likes of Dunn, Layman, and Auguste.  Layman, specifically, was said to be a BC lean prior to the spring, but has seemed to back off of that since kicking off a very good summer.

Still, with so many similarities to Providence (location, power conference, student population, etc.) it will be interesting to see how recruiting battles between Cooley and Donahue unfold in the upcoming years.

The verdict: Clearly, the advantage goes to Cooley here.  He made national waves in his first summer in landing a top 10 class nationally, supplemented that with a trio of former top 100 transfers in the spring, and cemented his staff’s recruiting reputation by locking down 2013 Philadelphia guard Brandon Austin with Connecticut and Texas in hot pursuit.

Donahue has suffered from the loss of Jones, but he’s quietly adding pieces.  The talented Ryan Anderson was a top 100 player a few years ago and has been a 15-10 sophomore.  Seven footer Dennis Clifford has battled through injuries in his sophomore season, but proved to be a serviceable big man last year, while Olivier Hanlan is a very good freshman point guard out of Canada.

While Anderson and Hanlan are nice pieces, the sheer depth of talent Cooley has brought in to date must have Eagles fans at least wondering where they’d be right now if Cooley was hired a few years back.  The Eagles roster going forward has far more holes than the one Cooley has built.

 

The Head Coaches:

It’s easy to forget now, but Cooley, the former BC assistant, was a finalist for the Boston College job in 2010 before BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo decided to go with Donahue.  The uber-competitive Cooley most likely has not forgotten.

While one of the knocks on Cooley was that he did not make the NCAA Tournament in his five seasons at Fairfield (he did win 20 in his final two), it took Donahue seven years before he had his first winning season at Cornell and eight before making the dance, so it can be hard to draw parallels to their tenures at Fairfield and Cornell.

The two coaches are oddly intertwined though.  It was Cooley, and now Northeastern head coach Bill Coen, who helped Skinner lead BC to the most prosperous years in the program’s history, and many believe that the departure of Skinner’s top assistants in 2006 led to his eventual downfall, opening the door for Donahue.

Connecticut is the undisputed king of New England basketball, but how Donahue and Cooley fair in relation to one another; on the recruiting trail, on the floor, and in reshaping the perception of their respective programs, may go a long way in determining not only who is New England’s number two, but how their careers unfold at their respective schools.

Notably, BC and Providence rarely make the NCAA Tournament in the same year.  Since 1970, it has happened on only four occasions: 1993-94, 1996-97, 2000-01, and 2003-04.

The verdict: From a sheer Xs and Os standpoint, it’s difficult to give either coach the nod at this point.  One thing Cooley has managed to do that Donahue has not is avoid the ugly defeat.  The loss to Bryant was tough, and BC also fell to a Charleston group that was blown out by a Division II team soon after.  BC also fell by 22 to Holy Cross last season.

For all of the talk of PC’s soft out of conference schedules the past two seasons, the closest thing to a bad out of conference loss came to Northern Iowa (they were a 20 win, NIT team last season).

Both coaches managed to squeeze four conference wins out of shaky rosters last season, which may have been a bigger accomplishment for Donahue considering Cooley at least had a veteran, and talented, point guard in Vincent Council.  Those who saw Boston College against Holy Cross early last year would have taken the under if the ACC total was set at three wins.

 

Email Kevin at kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

6 Comments

  1. Dean Harrington

    December 21, 2012 at 3:41 am

    BC appears done for the time being as a major college sports program in anything not played on ice. Call it the curse of Karma: bolting on the BE, the ill-fated firing of a football coach because he interviewed with, gasp, the NFL and the less-is-more denial of Al Skinner’s “value”.

    @DeansDesk

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