UAB Basketball: Head coach Andy Kennedy’s rise to top of Conference USA

UAB Basketball has emerged as one of the top contenders of Conference USA this season. It’s been an impressive coaching job by Andy Kennedy, who used the portal to his benefit.

Frisco, Texas, March 11, 2020. Led by 4th-year head coach Rob Ehsan, the Blazers were ready to go as the 7th seed in the 2020 Conference USA men’s basketball tournament. UAB’s first-round matchup came against the 10th seeded UTSA Roadrunners. Playing a struggling team in the first round of the tournament was ideal for the Blazers. What was not ideal, was the fact that 10 days earlier they had fell to UTSA in regular-season play.

In the first three years that Ehsan was at the helm for UAB, the Blazers had 0 March Madness appearances. The only way they would punch their ticket for the tournament in year 4 would be by winning the Conference USA men’s basketball tournament. On the back of then-sophomore Tavin Lovan, UAB rallied to beat the 10th seeded Roadrunners and advance to the next round.

Unfortunately, that would be the last game that Rob Ehsan would coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The day after the Blazers’ first-round victory, the entire sports world was put on pause due to a new virus named COVID-19. Although Ehsan’s UAB squad did not technically miss the tournament in year 4, the head coach was on a tight leash.

The Blazers were looking to bring back the program to the level it was at when Gene Bartow was in command, and clearly, Ehsan was not the ideal guy. In the following season, Ehsan would move on to be an assistant coach at Stanford University (where he is to this day).

Meanwhile, UAB was in search of someone to lead its program back to not only March Madness but to Sweet Sixteens and Elite Eights. From the start, it was pretty clear who the top candidate was to claim the head coaching role in Birmingham.

Let’s rewind a couple of years. In the neighboring state of Mississippi, Andy Kennedy had just finished up his 12th season as the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels. After questions of whether or not he would be brought back for a 13th season, Kennedy decided to resign and move to Birmingham, Alabama.

Birmingham happened to be where Kennedy had spent his sophomore through senior year in college playing for the Blazers, back in the late 1980’s. Not only did he play for UAB, but he also became the program’s second all-time leading scorer.

Flash forward to 2020, where the UAB head coach job opens up, and Kennedy has now been out of head coaching for a couple of years. Blazers fans knew exactly who they wanted: a head coach who had success on the court for his alma mater, and off the court coaching at a high major school.

Like a match made in heaven, the University of Alabama at Birmingham signed Andy Kennedy to be its seventh head coach in program history. Now, it was time to turn the program around.

In Kennedy’s first year in charge of UAB, the Blazers had an impressive regular-season record of 21-6 and a conference record of 13-5. A 4 point quarterfinals loss in the 2021 Conference USA tournament to Western Kentucky wrapped up a solid first year for Andy Kennedy.

All of that history led up to the summer of 2021: the start of this current season. Looking to build on year one, Kennedy hit the ground running. He added 8 players to the 2022 roster, after losing 7 to the transfer portal.

Although Kennedy had lost seven players to the transfer portal, he utilized it as well. 7 of the 8 additions to UAB over the summer were in the portal, with the most notable additions being Jordan Walker (transferred from Tulane), KJ Buffen (transferred from Ole Miss), and Jamal Johnson (transferred from Auburn).

UAB’s most important player in this 2022 campaign has been the Tulane transfer, Jordan “Jelly” Walker. Jelly has averaged a team-high 18.3 points per game and 4.5 assists per game. Walker is currently the best guard in Conference USA, let alone for the Blazers.

With UAB in the mix for its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2015, a large part of that can be attributed to the stellar play of Jelly Walker. Along with Walker, 5th year senior Quan Jackson and junior KJ Buffen have also been key pieces. What’s the similarity between the two? They both transferred to UAB after Andy Kennedy was hired.

As a matter of fact, out of the top eight contributors for the Blazers according to KenPom, seven of them have joined the team in the two years that Andy Kennedy has been at the helm. Only Tavin Lovan has experienced both Kennedy and former head coach Rob Ehsan.

The 17-5 start for UAB this year has been impressive, to say the least. In year 2, Andy Kennedy has already proved that the Blazers will be contenders year in and year out in Conference USA.

Not only has Kennedy’s coaching been superb, but his ability to recruit players and get them to buy in instantly has also been as well. With 9 games left in the regular season, the people of Birmingham aren’t questioning if the Blazers have what it takes to make the Big Dance, they are expecting it.

If anyone can lead UAB to somewhere it has not been in the last seven years, it is Andy Kennedy. When you are filling out your bracket come March, and you see UAB as a double-digit seed, I would suggest picking the upset.

The Blazers’ next game is Saturday, February 5th, where they have the chance to defeat the Eastern Division 1st place (14-6) Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders.