NCAA Basketball: Top 10 impact head coaching hires from 2009 offseason
By Joey Loose
10. Pat Chambers (Boston University)
Things were going alright at Boston University by the time 2009 rolled around, but they certainly could have been going better. Longtime coach Dennis Wolff stepped aside, necessitating the search for the next head coach. The Terriers had been competing at or near the top of the America East for the last decade but had just a single NCAA Tournament to show for their efforts.
They’d turn towards Pat Chambers, a Pennsylvania native, and young collegiate assistant. After playing and assisting the great Herb Magee at Philadelphia. He got his first D1 experience when he was hired onto Jay Wright’s staff at Villanova, spending five years with the Wildcats before his first chance to be a head coach.
Chambers spent just two seasons at Boston University, but they were pretty great seasons for the program. In his first year, the Terriers won their first postseason game in fifty years, going on a mini-run at the CBI. The following season, they won 21 games again, but this time returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade, and their most recent appearance. Penn State scooped up Chambers a few weeks later while the Terriers hunt for relevance.