Looking at Corey Williams’ run with Stetson Basketball and what the Hatters will do next.
The Stetson Hatters recently announced the firing of head coach Corey Williams after six seasons. Williams was rated 314th in our early season ranking of head coaches. At just 58-133, his tenure did not go as expected and his Hatters never really competed in the Atlantic Sun. His best record was last year’s 12-20 mark and these Hatters went a startling 22-68 in conference play. Seeing what Casey Alexander (Williams’ predecessor) has done at Lipscomb surely didn’t help his cause.
After playing college ball at Oklahoma State under Leonard Hamilton and Eddie Sutton, Williams had a short NBA career and was a 2nd round pick of the Chicago Bulls. After his retirement, he got into coaching, serving under Sutton’s son Scott for 7 years at Oral Roberts. He then spent six seasons with Hamilton at Florida State before getting the Stetson job in 2013, his first chance to run a program.
This past season was a particular struggle for the Hatters, as the team fell to 7-24 and didn’t qualify for the A-Sun Tournament. Especially damning was the fact that North Alabama, a team in their first year of Division 1 play, finished ahead of them in the standings. This team was led by sophomores and juniors, but they just didn’t have the talent to win games. The Hatters only had 5 wins against D1 competition, and all of those games were at home.
The Hatters’ best player was sophomore forward Abayomi Iyiola (10.8 ppg, 7.6 rpg), who paced the team in both scoring and rebounding. The only senior on the team was guard Leo Goodman (7.5 ppg, 2.9 rpg), and the next coach will have plenty of pieces already in place on this roster. There’s always the chance for departures with a head coaching change, but Iyiola is a solid piece to build around for the next two seasons if he stays.
Being just north of Orlando, Stetson is a mid-major program in central Florida that should be able to attract some local recruits. Lipscomb and Liberty are clearly the best teams this season in the A-Sun, but these conferences operate in a cyclic nature. In a few years it could be Stetson on top of the conference with the right coach, though he’ll have his work cut out for him.
Hiring another up and coming assistant might be the best course of action for the Hatters. Even if Williams didn’t win at Stetson doesn’t mean another assistant can’t get the job done. Not every A-Sun hire turns into an Andy Enfield, who was also a former FSU assistant when he took Florida Gulf Coast to the Sweet Sixteen six years ago. Hiring someone with head coaching experience (even at the junior college level) might not be a bad idea either and there will be many names mentioned from these schools in the state.
Williams had six years at Stetson and he couldn’t get the job done, but not all is lost for the Hatters. If they get this next hire right, they could make their first NCAA Tournament sooner rather than later.