DAYTON, Ohio – In less than a week, the college basketball season will start. Think of it as a five-month proving ground for all different sorts of folks. For elite coaches like John Calipari and Mike Krzyzewski and Sean Miller to prove their team is the nation’s best. For a one-and-done-type recruit such as Arizona’s Stanley Johnson or Kansas’ Cliff Alexander or Texas’ Myles Turner to prove he belongs not just in the NBA Draft lottery but high in the lottery. For an upperclassman like Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky or North Carolina’s Marcus Paige to further his legacy at his soon-to-be-alma-mater, to make a Final Four and to get more intriguing looks from professional basketball scouts.
That’s what we tend to focus on when we look at college hoops before any season: the best, and which coaches, which teams and which players will become the best.
But the greatest part about college basketball isn’t the bluebloods, of course. It’s the fact that, right now, there are 350 teams in Division I hoops who can make the NCAA tournament, and right now, days before the new season, every single one of those programs has players and coaches and staffers who are grinding to get better. A year ago, you weren’t talking about Mercer or about North Dakota State or Stephen F. Austin until March.
But then in March, those teams upset three-seed Duke and five-seed Oklahoma and five-seed VCU. It wasn’t until March when those schools and their up-and-coming coaches briefly became household names in the college basketball world, but it was way back in November — well before that, really, when these coaches were recruiting and these players were grinding — that something great started to build.
A list of the up-and-coming coaches in the low to mid-major level of college basketball includes names you’ve probably only heard of if you’re really into college basketball’s nitty gritty. Up-and-comers like 37-year-old Michael White of Louisiana Tech, one of the hottest names in coaching. Or former Duke great Bobby Hurley, who is in his second season at Buffalo and who a year ago took a program that’s never been to the NCAA tournament and guided it to a 19-10 record, winning its division. Or Brad Underwood of Stephen F. Austin, who’d been an assistant under Frank Martin at South Carolina until he led his new school to one of the biggest upsets in last year’s tournament in his first year on the job. Or 34-year-old Andy Toole at Robert Morris, who has won the Northeast Conference two straight years and who had his brief moment in the spotlight two seasons ago when the Colonials beat Kentucky in the NIT.
These are names that, not long from now — perhaps as soon as this March, when college basketball’s coaching carousel begins anew — will be mentioned in rumors for high-major jobs around the country. And these are names that, 10 years from now, might be running some of the nation’s top programs.
Names like Billy Donlon of Wright State.
On a recent morning at his spacious office in Dayton, where colorful crayon drawings by his 8-year-old daughter are tacked to the door and the wall, Donlon is sitting at his desk, contemplating the present and the future and the unique joys and challenges and difficulties of coaching at a place that isn’t exactly a destination job, but — for now, at least — is his destination.
“Of course I think about the next chapter of life,” said Donlon, who at 37 is considered one of the nation’s hottest young and under-the-radar coaches. “But if the next chapter is 'I’m at Wright State for 10 more years', I’d be elated. You gotta do your best in the job you’re in. It’s hard enough winning in college basketball.”
He’s had success in the four years since he took over for his former boss and mentor, Brad Brownell, who had moved onto an ACC head coaching job at Clemson. The Raiders have had a winning season in three of Donlon’s four years, finishing third in the Horizon League the past two seasons.
“The difficulty in winning is it’s all relative,” Donlon told me. “Winning the ACC or the Big East or the Horizon League — they’re all really tough. As quickly as people feel good about you, they feel bad about you. You should never forget about that as a coach. And it works the other way, too.”
It’s true. These up-and-comers shoot up quickly — and can fall into disfavor just as quickly. A year ago Jim Christian was achieving success at Ohio University, and now he’s running a program in the ACC, the nation’s premier basketball conference, trying to bring Boston College back to relevance. A year ago Saul Phillips was running a small basketball program in Fargo, N.D. — then North Dakota State beat Oklahoma on one day in March, and Phillips took over for Christian at Ohio. The opposite is also true: A few years ago Kevin Willard was one of the hottest names in college coaching after he turned an Iona squad that had gone 2-28 before his arrival into a 21-10 team in his third and final year — but now he’s looking at a gotta-win season at Seton Hall, where a bumper crop of freshmen must make an impact in the Big East to keep him off the hot seat.
This is one of the big challenges and often one of the big problems in college coaching. There’s no patience. A couple bad seasons and an up-and-coming guy is on the hot seat; a couple good seasons and an obscure guy is a hot name.
“We live in a microwave generation,” Donlon said. “Kids want to go in the microwave and come out a finished product. But it takes time to be a great pianist, a great writer, a great basketball player, a great coach. Because it’s the microwave generation, the ability to handle adversity isn’t what it should be. It’s a societal problem.”
A year from now, will we still be talking about a guy like Billy Donlon, or a guy like Michael White, or a guy like Bobby Hurley, as the next big things? Will we mention one of their names as the person who’ll take over the next big job opening, be it at Indiana (Tom Crean is on the hot seat, or so says the rumor mill) or at Maryland (Mark Turgeon is on the hot seat, or so says the rumor mill) or at DePaul (Oliver Purnell is on the hot seat, or so says the rumor mill)?
Maybe. Fortunes of coaches can change quickly. Coaches need to strike when the iron is hot if they want to strike at all. Sometimes they are content with their job; you get the sense that Bo Ryan would have stayed at Division III power Wisconsin-Platteville forever, winning national titles in relative obscurity, if he hadn’t found the perfect opportunities to stay in-state at UW-Milwaukee and then Wisconsin.
But the reality is, if a young coach is successful at a place that isn’t a traditional basketball power — a place like Wright State or Louisiana Tech or Robert Morris — the odds are that ambitious coach won’t stay too long. There aren’t too many Bob McKillops, who has been at Davidson since 1989. There aren’t many Rick Byrds, who has been at Belmont since 1986.
“A guy like (Donlon), he’s done a helluva job at a tough place, and those are the guys athletic directors focus on,” said Tim Floyd, the former Chicago Bulls head coach who is now at UTEP, and who has been a mentor to Donlon. “He’s got a great future.”
For now, though, up-and-comers like Donlon know they must treat their current job like their dream job. You won’t confuse Wright State with blueblood Indiana one state to the west, or even with the University of Dayton and all of its basketball tradition on just the other side of town. But a guy like Donlon has a pretty good gig going. Wright State is a big, growing school, 21,000 students strong, with 5,000 of them living on campus. The Horizon League is a pretty good conference: 14th in league RPI last season, with up-and-coming coaches like Donlon at Wright State, Bryce Drew at Valparaiso, and exciting players like Green Bay point guard Keifer Sykes — the reigning conference player of the year, and perhaps the most exciting under-the-radar point guard in the nation. Remember, it was only three years ago when the Horizon League was home to mid-major darling Butler and its own up-and-coming young head coach, Brad Stevens, who now leads the Boston Celtics.
Donlon is trying to recruit more outside the state of Ohio. Ohio has 14 Division I schools that already mine the state; Donlon has more players from Indiana than Ohio this season and has brought in recruits from as far away as Florida, Louisiana, Texas and even New Zealand. His loses his top four scorers from a year ago but still returns five players. Sometimes great coaching isn’t so much about what you achieve but instead what you do with what you have.
And so as the bluebloods like Kentucky and Duke and Kansas aim for the No. 1 rankings and the national title, and as the elite of the elite players try to prove themselves to NBA teams, up-and-comers like Donlon keep grinding, knowing the next big opportunity could be right around the corner. Each season is a proving ground, a chance to drum up interest, five months to get noticed.
And then comes March, when some teams make an unexpected splash, and other teams cut their ties with their current leader to move on to another, and the coaching carousel begins going round and round once again.
Email Reid Forgrave at reidforgrave@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @reidforgrave.
