Nearly two months have passed since the end of the college basketball season and yet this offseason just keeps delivering news. Seeing signings and transfers at this point is still common place even into late May, but we got unexpected news on the coaching carousel front.
After sixteen seasons as head coach at North Florida, Matthew Driscoll is stepping down from that post and taking a new job at Kansas State. Driscoll won nearly 250 games as the most successful D1 head coach for the Ospreys and now transitions into a role as associate head coach for his longtime friend and former coworker Jerome Tang.
Driscoll bounced around at several high schools and smaller colleges early in his career, catching on at the D1 level at Wyoming in 1997. Six years later, he joined Scott Drew’s staff at Valparaiso before following Drew to Baylor just a few weeks later. There he played a significant role in the first steps of Drew’s resurrection project for that Bears program.
North Florida had some solid years under Driscoll’s leadership, including the program’s first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament back in 2015. He built success and did impressive work and it’s very appropriate that the Osprey’s interim head coach and his apparent successor was a major part of that process.
Bobby Kennen had a similar path in coaching, cutting his teeth at the college level before catching on as a D1 assistant a quarter century ago. After stints with Wichita State, Jacksonville, and Campbell, Kennen would join Driscoll’s initial coaching staff back in 2009. He’s been the program’s associate head coach ever since 2012 and has been part of everything Ospreys basketball for sixteen years.
His only prior head coaching experience came at the high school level in the late 90’s, but Kennen has the potential to do something great. He’s officially the interim head coach and likely has a chance to earn the permanent title, hoping to lead this program to ASUN success in the coming months.
Driscoll’s departure is strange, especially at this point in the calendar, but he’s not exactly leaving North Florida high and dry with his longtime assistant taking the reins. Meanwhile, Driscoll reunites with Tang, as the two had been assistants at Baylor some twenty years ago. Kansas State hasn’t been in great position in recent years and Tang is clearly banking on Driscoll’s influence to help push the Wildcats back into the NCAA Tournament.
Whatever the reasons for this decision, Driscoll’s focus moves to coaching and recruiting in the Big 12 while North Florida enters a brand new era for the first time in over a decade. Can this team be successful under Kennen in this interim season?