NCAA Basketball: Coaches navigating the new world of college basketball

Has coaching become more involved?

Not many people expected that when Kansas knocked off Villanova in the national semifinals en route to a national championship that it would be the last game that Jay Wright would coach at Villanova. In the days that followed, some wondered if that part of the reason the decision took many by surprise was because of some of these new-age factors becoming the norm in college basketball.

So finally, I wanted to ask the coaches about the profession and how much it has changed over their careers, and whether it has become harder to run a program. There are some like Herrion that say it has become more involved over the years. He said, “It has changed, it’s really changed in recent years, it is getting harder there are so many options for these players, it’s gotten more challenging for sure.”

Simon agreed, telling me,

"“No question, this year as opposed to two years ago, this thing has changed, this is like coaching at prep school, I was at Findlay Prep for seven years and we had to rebuild our team every year, so we are just back to prep school.”"

Others, like Kennedy, have the view that the coaching profession has always been a 24/7/365 job. He said, “I think your focus has to go to different areas, but it’s always been a 365, seven days a week, 24 hours a day (job). I think that has always been the case, most especially since I’ve been in it.”

Grasso agreed, saying,

"“Yes and no. I’m the son of a coach, that’s the way I was raised in this. It’s an all-consuming, year-round, day-round (job), it doesn’t really stop for us. There were guys that coached 30 years ago that were seven days a week, 12-hour a day guys but with different responsibilities. It has become more encompassing in terms of the time you have to put in.”"

With the retirement of Jay Wright, I was curious if the coaches thought we might see more of them retire, what some might consider early. Pastner thinks that is possible saying,

"“I could see that happening. That’s just going to be kind of the way it is. There have been a lot of coaches who have been very successful who are doing it for a long time have told me, I’m coming down to the last few holes on the golf course, you have to play another 18. My response is I hope I get to play another 36.”"

Herrion, who goes back a long way with Wright back to when Herrion was at Drexel and Wright was just starting out at Hofstra, had one of the better responses to the question saying,

"“I don’t know, I always thought that at our level at UNH you can just coach basketball because you didn’t have a lot of outside distractions That I think these coaches at the higher levels have. I think now with what is going on with recruiting, with the portal, with eligibility, with NILs I can’t even imagine at those high levels. I’m not so sure, I don’t know if some of that maybe drove Jay to just kind of step away.”"

After having the opportunity to talk to these coaches about these new-age things that have added to their responsibilities, it is clear that while running a college basketball program may have never been about just coaching basketball, the amount of space that coaching takes up on their plates is shrinking fast.

No matter what level of the sport these guys are coaching at, all of these things affect them in varying ways and degrees, whether that be directly or indirectly through some sort of trickle-down effect. For these coaches with things like the portal and NILs being added to their plates, it is like they are greenhorns on a ship being thrown into the fire and learning on the fly.