Bob Hurley says he hasn’t yet spoken with his son, Rhode Island coach Dan Hurley, about the Rutgers basketball opening, but believes that the school needs to hire a young, hungry coach who can get after it on the recruiting trail.
Rutgers on Thursday fired 61-year-old Eddie Jordan after three years and Dan Hurley, 43, is considered the No. 1 option to replace him.
“Well, there’s work to be done so the person that comes in I think needs to be a younger guy on the way up who is prepared to put the time in to just outwork people,” the legendary St. Anthony’s coach told me Friday morning by phone as he prepared for Saturday night’s Non-Public B state championship game against Roselle Catholic.
“So I think a veteran coach who has had success may not be ready for the time needed right now to build up a roster, get the name out there again so Rutgers is competitive in the area again because I would say the way Seton Hall’s playing right now, there’s a big gap between Seton Hall and Rutgers right now.”
Led by Big East co-Coach of the Year Kevin Willard, Seton Hall is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006 and will play in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament on Friday night against Xavier.
The elder Hurley, a Naismith Hall of Famer who is more than 1,000 games over .500 for his career and has won 12 Tournament of Champions titles, said he and Dan have been too busy with their own seasons until this point to discuss other jobs.
“I’m in season, I’ve interrupted my looking at Roselle Catholic film to talk about this right now and that’s all I have on my mind,” Bob Hurley said. “He and I have not talked about anything other than our teams for weeks. I was up to see them [Rhode Island] two weeks ago, I drove up and all we did was talk about our teams.”
He added: “If it’s way down the road, I probably would have a fatherly conversation if that was something they were doing.”
Dan Hurley, meantime, declined to address the Rutgers speculation after his team lost to UMass Thursday night in the Atlantic 10 Tournament at Barclays Center.
“I’m not going to dishonor a group of guys or myself or my staff that have battled through an incredible season by responding to some social media speculation that’s out there,” Dan Hurley told Dan Duggan of NJ.com after the game. “It dishonors the efforts of too many people and the things we accomplished this year.”
Rutgers hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1991 and has virtually no tradition of success. The school has hired and fired a series of coaches in the last decade or so, from Gary Waters to Fred Hill to Mike Rice to Jordan.
Ironically, while the school has floundered, New Jersey has always been an extremely fertile recruiting ground, with St. Anthony’s, St. Patrick’s, St. Benedict’s Prep, Roselle Catholic and Blair Academy among the teams that are regularly nationally ranked and producing a constant flow of Division 1 players. Earlier this year I wrote that St. Anthony’s, St. Pat’s and Roselle Catholic between them had 24 players with Division 1 offers.
And that didn’t even include St. Benedict’s, Blair, Hudson Catholic, St. Joe’s-Metuchen and other schools.
Rutgers has always had the potential to be a basketball power, but it has never actually happened.
Many of the state’s top high school and AAU coaches believe it can happen, but said Rutgers needs a younger coach who can get after it the way Jordan and his staff didn’t always do.
“I think Rutgers should hire someone who has recent or current ties to recruiting the New Jersey high school and AAU programs,” said Roselle Catholic coach Dave Boff, whose team has won two of the last three Tournament of Champions titles. “Someone who is going to make the commitment to signing kids from the area which will in turn get New Jersey excited about Rutgers basketball.”
Current RC senior guard Matt Bullock held a Rutgers offer under Jordan, and Boff thinks the next coach should strongly consider adding the uncommitted 6-foot-4 guard who is seeking his fourth state championship and third TOC title.
“Matt is still excited about the opportunity at Rutgers and is very much looking forward to seeing who the new coach is,” Boff said. “I hope it works for both sides because a player like Matt signing would be exactly what the fan base has been hoping for. A great player from one of the state’s top programs who has been a consistent winner.”
Chris Chavannes, the head coach at St. Patrick’s, which has produced NBA players Kyrie Irving, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Al Harrington, said his top three candidates for the Rutgers opening are Dan Hurley, Seton Hall associate head coach Shaheen Holloway and current Montverde and former St. Pat’s head coach Kevin Boyle, who has developed top-3 NBA Draft picks like Irving, Kidd-Gilchrist, Joel Embiid, D’Angelo Russell and projected No. 1 pick Ben Simmons.
“Three factors make the Rutgers’ search committee’s job unique: the program’s recent struggles, the conference affiliation and the New Jersey location,” Chavannes said. “The fact that Rutgers basketball has been down for a while means you need a new-age coach that can connect with the ‘Millennial Generation, AAU-era athlete to convince him to shun the tradition of a perennial power program and come to a place where he can be a trailblazer and build something new and get the credit for it.
“Because the program is in the Big Ten, you need a coach with name-brand recognition that can go into living rooms the weekend after Tom Izzo, John Beilein or Thad Matta and compete for top recruits. FInally, that Rutgers is in New Jersey gives the next coach the opportunity to tap the richest high school talent hotbed in the country and also the challenge of the New York City metropolitan area media. You need someone with New Jersey roots and connections that can keep the best New Jersey and New York City kids home but who also has the thick skin and savvy to deal with the pressure from the constant newspaper, radio and television coverage.”
Ed Bright, the director of the Sports U AAU program that has produced Karl-Anthony Towns, Wade Baldwin, Jared Nickens, Quadri Moore and many other top players, said the next Rutgers coach should take a page out of Chris Mullin’s playbook and bring in the area’s top high school and AAU guys early on to begin to establish relationships.
“Chris Mullin brought us all in and he said, ‘Listen, we can do all the things we want to do right here at St. John’s University,'” Bright said. “He brought in Matt Abdelmassih, who did a great job at Iowa State [as an assistant], he brought in Slice [Barry Rohrssen], he brought in guys who have been here, done it, and can get in the trenches. And Rutgers can’t be high and lofty, either. They’ve gotta have guys who get in the trenches with us.”
“It’s not just New Jersey, [the next Rutgers coach] has to go into New York,” Bright added. “He’s gotta deal with Munch [Terrance Williams of the PSA Cardinals], he’s gotta deal with [Dana] Dingle [of the NY Lightning], he’s gotta deal with Andy [Borman of the Rens], he’s gotta deal with these guys. He’s gotta bring them all together and say, ‘Listen, we can do everything we want to do right here in New Jersey.‘”
Seton Hall did well recruiting New York and New Jersey kids like Isaiah Whitehead, Desi Rodriguez, Angel Delgado, Khadeen Carrington and Ismael Sanogo. Seton Hall often has a slew of young recruits at their games, while Rutgers, as I wrote earlier this year, did not.
“A lot of the ingredients that Seton Hall brought together, Rutgers has gotta do it,” Bright said. “I don’t think they need to necessarily hire a high school coach but I think the mix of coaches that they bring has got to be important.
“I think you’ve got to find yourself an astute AAU guy who’s respected in the community,” Bright added. “Brian Coleman [of Sports U] would be a great guy for Rutgers to bring in. He’s resepcted, he’s loved. Now iIdon’t want to lose Brian but he’s the type of guy that has that mix. He has that intellect, he’s got a wonderful nature about him, he’s a gentleman, he’s classy, he’s big on education, he’s big on family.”
Bob Hurley has been coaching at St. Anthony’s since the early 1970s. Asked if Rutgers could ever get it going, he made a comparison to Donald Trump and his famed proposed wall on the Mexican border.
“They talk about Donald Trump putting the wall up,” he said. “If you were to just keep kids from Blair, St Benedict’s, the Catholic schools that are in the state association and you were just able to get kids around the state to identify again with the state university and want to play in the Big Ten, you should be able to get kids because it’s a great conference and it’s a fertile area,” he said. “And you don’t have to get everybody but you can’t lose out. You can’t come in second. You can’t waste your time recruiting a guy who you’re not going to get when you could be recruitng a guy who might be a little bit behind him but you ultimately get him.”
Ultimately, Rutgers needs to get the right man for the job.
