Butler Basketball

The Boston Celtics’ announcement that they are bringing in Butler’s Brad Stevens as their next head coach was a shock. No one saw it coming.

When Butler taps Stevens’ successor, nobody will be surprised when they hire from within the Bulldogs’ basketball family.

In fact, the Indianapolis Star’s Zak Keefer and David Woods say that Butler athletic director Barry Collier has already narrowed his search to two former Butler players: Brandon Miller (current Bulldog assistant coach) and LaVall Jordan (current Michigan assistant coach).

According to Keefer and Woods, Miller interviewed for the position “just hours after Collier was told by Brad Stevens that he had accepted the Boston Celtics coaching job.”

However, ESPN’s Jeff Goodman, citing “sources with knowledge of the situation” believes that Jordan has “emerged as the front-runner” to replace Stevens.

LaVall Jordan both played at Butler (1998-2001) and was a member of the Bulldogs’ coaching staff from 2003-2007.

In his ESPN Insider blog (subscription required) dated August 2, 2012, Jay Bilas included Jordan in a list of “five assistants who are currently underrated but make a huge impact on the recruiting trail.” He said:

Jordan is smart and really works hard. He is not at all about flash; he is about substance. Jordan supports his head coach, and he supports his players. He is not coaching for show but is teaching to reach the players. He is the same as a recruiter. Jordan pays attention and puts his head down and goes to work. Jordan played at Butler and began his coaching career there, and he has the same confident and analytical approach one would expect of the Butler way. He got a degree in journalism, but fortunately for the Wolverines, he aimed higher. You can trust LaVall Jordan.

He would bring an excellent track record of in-state recruiting success over the last few years while he has been on John Beilein’s staff in Ann Arbor. The Detroit News’ Rob Beard noted that Jordan “has been important in Michigan’s recruiting in the state of Indiana and nabbing players such as sophomore Glenn Robinson III and freshman Zak Irvin.”

Jordan has a reputation of being a capable skills builder. Beard also observed that Jordan is “credited with helping develop U-M’s last two point guards, Darius Morris and Trey Burke, and helping them get to the NBA.”

If Butler hires Jordan as their next head coach, it will break the university’s pattern of promoting a current assistant coach. The last time that they hired someone other than an existing assistant coach dates back to when Collier, a Butler alum, was selected for the head coaching job in 1989. Collier was a Stanford assistant coach immediately before being brought back to lead the Bulldogs forward.

While the Bulldogs would probably do well with either of these two 34-year-old candidates, LaVall Jordan would give the school and program the best chance to achieve future success and continue upholding The Butler Way.

Commend new Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens for one thing.

At least he didn't kick Butler University to the curb on an hour-long ESPN special.

Shots at LeBron aside, the world of Butler basketball didn't just get turned upside down yesterday. It may have completely imploded.

Thirty-six-year-old Brad Stevens, the coach with the most wins in his first six seasons in NCAA Division l history, has bolted for greener pastures (figuratively and literally), as he accepted an offer to coach the Boston Celtics.

Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the pact is worth $22 million over six years.

From the national basketball fan's perspective, the move makes perfect sense for Stevens. And why wouldn't it?

His salary will be more than triple the amount he made at Butler. The Celtics are one of the most prestigious franchises in the NBA, owning the most championships in league history. He has the chance to continue a legacy and tradition containing the likes of Red Auerbach and K.C. Jones.

And as great as he was as a college coach, recruiting has never been his forte. He won't have to worry about that in Boston and can focus on his strengths, X's and O's, revolutionary analysis, managing various personalities masterfully and looking dapper on the sidelines.

Butler fans, on the other hand, just got absolutely blindsided. Nobody saw this coming.

There are probably about a thousand emotions Bulldog fans have had since hearing of Stevens' departure. They may range from anger, sadness, eagerness to partake in July 4 festivities, more anger, appreciation for a great coach and the urgency to want to eat their sorrows away with a gallon of Rocky Road.

Did I mention that nobody saw this coming?

Not even Matthew Graves, Bulter's former associate head coach, who was recently hired by South Alabama as its head coach, was enlightened until the rest of us were. Had he known he was in line for a promotion at Butler, he would have been crazy not to stay.

Brad Stevens turned down Illinois a year ago. He turned down UCLA even more recently, and he just handled it all so nonchalantly. As if nothing else mattered to him except Butler University. 

Which is why it just stings all the more if you're a Butler fan.

It's not like he'd be the first coach to leverage a good situation into a better one. Heck, he wouldn't even be the first Butler coach to do so. Predecessors Thad Matta and Todd Lickliter used Butler as stepping stones to land jobs at Xavier (and eventually Ohio State) and Iowa, respectively.

So why does it seem to hurt so much worse with Brad Stevens?

The answer is not as scientific as his basketball acumen. He just seemed different than the rest.

You would expect someone like Rick Pitino to vault himself into the most ego-feeding coaching situation possible. Same with John Calipari and Larry Brown, who have made similar leaps to the ones Stevens just did.

And while the finance and logistics of the decision may be great, you have to wonder how happy Stevens will actually be in Boston.

First, a college basketball coach is far more important to his program than an NBA coach is to his franchise. In college, with the roster turning over drastically each year, the one constant is the coach. Not that an NBA coach isn't vastly important to his team's success, but by and large, the NBA is a players league. And the Celtics roster is a mess.

Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett (who happens to be older than Brad Stevens, so go figure) are gone from what was a mediocre team last year. Rajon Rondo and Jeff Green are the team's best players, but Rondo has been the topic of trade rumors all offseason. Outside of those two, there isn't a whole lot to be excited about from a talent standpoint besides the number of hot dogs Jared Sullinger can wolf down in one sitting.

To be frank, he probably would have had a better chance of winning a national championship at Butler in the next five years than he does winning an NBA championship with the Celtics.

Now? Brad Stevens is basically to Butler basketball as the elusive "true love" is to the hopeless romantic. There's always the one who may seem different, but in reality, they're all just the same.

Or another way of putting it: Brad Stevens is to Butler basketball as a can of Cheez Whiz is to my understanding of how analogies work. Regardless of how you spin it, the Bulldogs come out on the losing end.

Hyperbole aside, the program is not doomed. In fact, they are far from it. Even before the arrival of Stevens, Butler was a respectable program that was an NCAA tournament threat each year.

But sadly, the program could have exploded had Stevens stayed as quickly as it imploded when he left. While they will still be competitive, it's hard to imagine them becoming the national powerhouse many predicted they could become with the combination of Brad Stevens and the Big East.

In all sincerity, best of luck in Boston, Brad. I wish you nothing but the best with your NBA coaching career.

But if it doesn't work out, we'll be here in six years.

Per their official website, the Boston Celtics convinced Brad Stevens on Wednesday to leave a comfortable situation at Butler, where he was king and could do no wrong.

Another college basketball golden boy—similar to a younger Rick Pitino—off to the NBA, a league that has sent the best and brightest college minds back to where they came from.

Stevens is different, the Celtics would like to think. And they have a good argument.

College basketball had never seen a Stevens before. He was 31 when he took over as head coach and had Butler—Butler!—in the national championship game by his third season.

But it was the way he went about it that got everyone’s attention—using advanced numbers to navigate his way through the bracket.

Stevens has had some talented players, but the perception—and it's a fair one—is that he wins with his mind. Every move he makes on a basketball court is calculated. He doesn’t draw up a play without knowing the chances of the outcome.

A year ago, Stevens hired a Duke statistics major named Drew Cannon to be a graduate assistant. Cannon, who had no previous coaching experience, was brought on to be an advanced statistics guru for the Bulldogs. He’s the only one of his kind in college basketball.

They have all kinds of Cannons in the NBA. That’s what the league believes in right now. That’s what had to make the Boston job attractive to Stevens.

Recruiting is not why Stevens loves basketball. He loves manipulating the game. He loves solving problems. He had Cannon producing lineup evaluations and inventing statistics.

“Coach Stevens is less of a stats guy than a 'I want every piece of information' guy,” Cannon told me this past season. “If you can tell me something that I didn’t already know, I like to know about it. If stats is the way to do it, great. If scouting is the way to do it, great. If talking to some guy at lunch is the way to do it, great.”

The thought was that Stevens was waiting for the perfect college job to open up, but all along, maybe it was the perfect pro job that he desired.

Why he picked the Celtics is puzzling, considering the franchise is in rebuilding mode. Why not go to a winner? He's appears destined to be another college coach set up to fail. 

But maybe the opportunity to solve that problem enticed Stevens. He’s also going to a franchise that is loyal in a league that is so fickle its Coach of the Year was just fired. Doc Rivers spent nine years in Boston, and he left by choice.

The college-to-the-pros coaches have not had that luxury in the last 20 years. Most have come back to college after the league didn’t want them anymore.

You could argue the situations were not ideal for any of those coaches, or you could say they just were not fit for the professional ranks.

A guy like Calipari succeeds with recruiting and getting elite college athletes to buy into defense. Pitino wins with a system fit for the college game, although it’s worth noting that he was fairly successful in his first run in the pros. He went 90-74 and made the playoffs twice in two seasons with the Knicks from 1987 to 1989.

That’s when the perfect job for Pitino opened up in the college ranks. He left to take over Kentucky, which at the time looked like a ridiculous challenge to take on because the program was on probation.

Boston could be to Stevens what Kentucky was to Pitino. Ignore the current parts. Look at the tradition.

If it doesn’t work out, a great job will be waiting for Stevens if and when he decides to return to the college game.

He was one of a kind at that level. And he’ll always be welcomed back. 

The city of Indianapolis has witnessed the epitome of what makes the great game of basketball so unique from its hometown teams in the last 20 years.

They've watched gargantuan-sized centers with exceptional skill and dominance patrol the paint for their beloved Indiana Pacers and Butler Bulldogs.

Beginning with former Pacer great Rik Smits, the torch was then passed to current Pacer center Roy Hibbert. And while recent Butler graduate Andrew Smith’s play was often about as graceful as Nicholas Cage’s acting career, it would be foolish not to recognize that his presence will be missed on the front line next season.

This trend poses the question…who could be the next Butler big man?

There is one possibility. Meet Derrik Smits, the 6’10" junior-to-be at Zionsville High School and son of Rik Smits. The younger Smits received a scholarship offer from Butler after attending Butler's Elite Camp last week.

Is penciling Smits in to the 2015-2016 Butler starting lineup a tad premature? Absolutely, as a decision is far from being made by Derrik’s camp. But the scholarship offer itself and its mere timing pose a harsh reality for Butler’s newly dubbed Big East foes:

 The Butler Bulldogs could be downright scary for the next 10 years.

No, it’s not because of the potential arrival of Smits. He simply serves as a microcosm of a change in recruiting approach that can propel Butler from a national contender to a powerhouse.

Butler already has a knack for finding diamonds in the rough. For example, Shelvin Mack, now of the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA, was a mere 2-star recruit coming out of high school, according to scout.com.

In the past, head coach Brad Stevens rarely offered a high school player a scholarship before they began their junior season. Famously, he nabbed Gordon Hayward the summer before his senior year of high school when he stood just 6’3" inches tall and was more heavily recruited as a tennis player than as a basketball player.

Combining the knack of finding the next under-recruited, high school try-hard with resources that potentially could lure blue-chippers to the Circle City is starting to become a real possibility for the Bulldogs, thanks to their leap of faith into the restructured Big East Conference.

To put things in perspective, Butler already has 11 more wins in the last five years than the next closest school (Creighton) that will enter the new Big East Conference next season. They are 14 ahead of Marquette in this category, 21 ahead of Xavier and 27 ahead of Villanova and Georgetown, according to sports-reference.com.

Clearly, they are no strangers to success.

However, they are strangers to a surplus of recruiting dollars.

According to an ESPN.com article immediately following Butler’s second national championship game appearance, their yearly recruiting budget was a touch under $60,000. Kentucky’s, by comparison, led the nation at $575,000. Most “power conference” schools, which Butler can now claim to be, were in the $200,000 range.

Brad Stevens helped make Alex Barlow one of the most feared defenders in the Atlantic 10 last year. Heck, he even makes the most ordinary of reading glasses look dynamite. There’s no telling what Stevens could do with a legitimate recruiting budget that will stem from being in a power conference with more revenue opportunities and TV exposure.

Derrik Smits, you might not be the savior. But everything your recruitment symbolizes and stands for should leave Bulldog faithful with a hopeful attitude for years to come.

It's easy to see why Brad Stevens would be an intriguing option for prominent college basketball programs searching for a new head coach. It's much tougher to understand why Stevens would take one of those high-pressure jobs after what he's built at Butler.

The latest program to come calling was UCLA, which fired Ben Howland after being eliminated from the NCAA tournament. Stevens decided against taking the Bruins job, although he didn't completely close the door on leaving, according to a report from ESPN:

A source close to the situation said Friday that Stevens will remain at Butler despite being the top target in UCLA's search for a new men's basketball coach.

In an earlier text message to ESPN, Stevens reaffirmed his coaching status at Butler, but he also left the door slightly ajar by saying he would not comment on "any other speculation or situation."

Given Stevens' success with the Bulldogs, there's a strong chance UCLA will be far from the last team that attempts to coax him away from Butler. Yet the risks far outweigh the reward for the 36-year-old head coach.

The Bruins are a perfect example of why. The coach they just let go, Howland, made three Final Four appearances in 10 years leading the program, including a trip to the national title game. His team won 25 games and made the tournament this season.

He was still let go. His last Final Four, which came during the 2007-08 season, was no longer enough to save him at a program that expects greatness every season.

Stevens wouldn't be immune from those sky-high expectations simply because he would be a high-profile hire. If anything, his success at Butler would lead to even higher standards wherever he landed next. People would expect instant results.

It's just not UCLA, of course. It goes for any major college team with a rich basketball tradition, which are usually the ones seeking coaches like Stevens to reinvigorate the the program.

Instead, he can stay at Butler, where he's acquired some faith from the fanbase based on the continued success. It gives him some leeway if the team has a down season or a certain year's recruiting class doesn't rank highly.

Those are little things at Butler because he's proven capable of building a winning team. They would be major issues at a bigger program. His every move would be scrutinized.

The other main reason staying with the Bulldogs makes the most sense is the team's move to the Big East. The Bulldogs are one of three new members that will join the revamped conference, which will be basketball heavy.

Although it will take some time to see exactly where the conference slots, it should still be one of the best overall conferences in college basketball. And Stevens didn't even have to change jobs to land in it.

Stevens has done terrific work at Butler. Leaving for another job just for the sake of proving himself or a larger salary wouldn't be the best long-term move.

Unless another program comes along with a truly impossible-to-refuse offer, Stevens is best off staying right where he is.