Last week’s annual Wooden Tip-Off Luncheon at the Los Angeles Athletic Club elicited laughter, stories and reflection on one of the all-time greats in the men’s basketball college coaching profession, a moment of relaxation before the grind of the 2014-15 season began with first practices on Friday, October 3.
Cal Poly’s Joe Callero, Cal State Fullerton’s Dedrique Taylor, Reggie Theus of CSUN, Dan Monson of Long Beach State, UC Irvine’s Russell Turner, UC Riverside’s Dennis Cutts and Bob Williams of UC Santa Barbara took the podium in front of assembled media and various school administrators to talk up the upcoming campaign, joining their head coaching comrades from UCLA, USC, San Diego, Loyola Marymount, Pepperdine and San Diego State.
The Tip-Off Luncheon honors the late John R. Wooden, the iconic UCLA basketball coach who won 10 national championships during a storied career.
Here are some of the tidbits that emerged from the luncheon.
CAL POLY – JOE CALLERO
Callero spoke to the continued impact of Coach Wooden through technology. He subscribes to a weekly newsletter called “Wooden’s Wisdom” in which anecdotes of Coach Wooden’s life, tips and stories are provided as sources of instruction and inspiration.
“Everybody who has email knows the old story – you see email and you don’t open half of them. Delete, delete, delete,” said Callero. “It’s amazing that when that Wooden Wisdom email pops up, you just feel like it’s your mom’s email. You’re going to open that. You’re going to check it out.”
The sixth-year Mustang head coach recalled last year’s whirlwind eight days in which his program became the first No. 7 seed to claim the Big West Tournament championship, won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time, and captured the hearts of the Central Coast community.
“It was magical because of what happened to our community. We had people fill every single bar in the streets. We sold 500,000 shirts on campus,” related Callero. “We were getting emails and pictures from New York to San Francisco, and that to me was a goose bump experience about impacting alumni and people throughout.”
CAL STATE FULLERTON – DEDRIQUE TAYLOR
Taylor, who enters his second season at the helm of the Titans, remembered Coach Wooden in the context of a talk he had given to a team while Taylor was an assistant coach at Nevada.
Coach Wooden had asked what color uniforms the team was wearing that night. One of the players replied “White.”
And he said, “I’ll give you a real important piece of advice. Throw the ball to the team that’s wearing white tonight.”
Taylor paused as laughter echoed throughout the room. “So at the time I thought, ‘That’s good advice. It’s a little trivial but okay. But now, as the head coach? Wow.”
Taylor joked, “(Last year) I stood on the sidelines sometimes and caught passes from our team in the game, and I’m still trying to figure out who they were passing it to, but nonetheless just a bit of history with Coach Wooden.”
In all seriousness, the Titans will be looking to improve on last year’s 11-20 mark, and eight new players have infused the program with new talent in search of that improvement.
REGGIE THEUS – CSUN
Theus talked about the rivalry between Louisville and Kentucky, and his time as an assistant coach at Louisville under Rick Pitino.
While some of the rivalries in the Big West may not generate as much national notoriety, they are no less fierce. Theus expects this year’s fight for the championship to be as intense as ever.
“The conference itself is about as competitive as it gets,” said Theus. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if only one or two games separated the top five teams in the final standings.
Theus also is blending in eight freshmen with a veteran contingent that includes all-conference honorees Stephen Maxwell and Stephan Hicks. Four of the frosh hail from the east coast. How Theus is also to get this new concoction of talent to mix will be an intriguing storyline.
One thing is for sure. His team is eager to learn and grow.
“The way that I coach – we watch an enormous amount of film,” said Theus. “They’re asking me already to watch film, which I think is phenomenal.”
DAN MONSON – LONG BEACH STATE
Monson poked fun at his colleague from San Diego State, the venerable Steve Fisher, who was honored as the 2015 John R. Wooden Award “Legends of Coaching” recipient. Fisher, a 1967 graduate of Illinois State, began his coaching career in 1979 as an assistant coach at Western Michigan.
Wryly, Monson noted “You can’t beat him on a player because you go in and you tell them ‘Hey look, you come play for me at Long Beach and I’ll be your father figure.’ Two hours later, he (Fisher) walks in and says ‘Hey, come to San Diego State I’ll not only be your father figure, I’ll also be your grandfather figure.”
All kidding aside, Monson has assembled the nation’s toughest nonconference schedule once again. The 49ers begin the season at BYU, and play Xavier, Kansas State and UCLA in a 6-day period. And if that wasn’t enough, they will tackle the likes of Texas, St. John’s, Syracuse and Louisville during a 10-day stretch over Christmas.
And let’s not forget a showdown on Dec. 10 against the grandfather figure himself, Fisher, at Viejas Arena.
RUSSELL TURNER – UC IRVINE
The ‘Eaters are hungry.
Fifth-year head coach Russell Turner uttered those words, referencing the 44 victories his program has accumulated over the last two seasons, yet without the prized fruit – a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
“We accomplished some of our goals last year, but I think our improvement fell short of the main one,” Turner began. “What that means for us is that we’re motivated. We’re going to be really fun to watch, and fun to root for, because we’re so hard to play against.”
And of course, no discussion about UC Irvine wouldn’t be complete without mentioning towering 7-foot-6 center Mamadou Ndiaye, who is the tallest player in college basketball.
“If you haven’t seen Mamadou Ndiaye, I’d invite you to come check him out. I tell people all the time that I’d pay money to watch that kid practice,” said Taylor.
Ndiaye set the Big West single-season blocked shots record with 106 as a freshman last year.
Turner thanked the crowd for the invite, and talked about how he had spent some time during the summer reading up on Coach Wooden. Among the things he learned he had in common: both were English majors, both taught high school English, and both married their high school sweethearts.
Turner’s wife, Elizabeth, was among the attendees on what he termed “a date lunch.”
DENNIS CUTTS – UC RIVERSIDE
Times are exciting on the campus of UC Riverside, according to head coach Dennis Cutts, who had the interim tag dropped and became the official leader of the program on April 2, 2014.
That excitement extends to the basketball program.
Cutts credited his former basketball boss, and now current UCR Director of Athletics, Jim Wooldridge, with helping to create that excitement, and now the Highlanders are hoping to capitalize with more success on the court.
In their search for more talent, Cutts and his staff tapped the international pipeline as a way of approaching recruiting strategy a bit differently. They mined three freshmen that could contribute immediately – 6-7 forward Robert Boezeman (Dordrecht, Netherlands), 6-9 forward Alex Larsson (Södertälje, Sweden) and 6-3 guard Chris Tang (Jiangsu, China).
But even more importantly for Cutts is the amount of experience he has returning with four starters.
“I think 1-4 we’re as good as we’ve ever been at Riverside,” Cutts said. “We’ve got depth; we’ve got talent. I could not have a better group of seniors.”
BOB WILLIAMS – UC SANTA BARBARA
Williams, the dean of Big West head coaches with 16 years of experience, has witnessed a little bit of everything during his time at UC Santa Barbara.
He knows full well how difficult the coaching profession can be.
Harkening back to a Wooden Luncheon several years ago when Bob Burton was then the head coach at Cal State Fullerton, Williams recalled the sunny picture that Burton painted right before teams begin practice, when no one has a loss on their record, and optimism abounds.
He said, “Isn’t this a great time of the year? Everybody loves their team right now. The chemistry is great; the energy is great. And then you see us at the Final Four, and we’ve kicked three guys off and can’t stand our team.”
As the laughter from the audience began to die down, Williams continued, using the New England Patriots as a metaphor for the ups and downs of coaching.
“And if you think that’s an exaggeration, did anybody see that picture of Tom Brady sitting on the bench, and (Bill) Belichick afterwards in that interview session?,” Williams said in reference to New England’s recent 41-14 loss to Kansas City. “Belichick looked like he had just given childbirth to triplets. He was absolutely drained. It’s a hard business. My hat goes off to every coach in here.”
Fortunately for Williams, his job might be just a little bit less difficult this season as he returns a wealth of talent, beginning with reigning Big West Player of the Year Alan Williams. Williams averaged a double-double last year while leading the nation in rebounding. He also brings back point guard Zalmico Harmon, who ranked No. 2 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio, and two guard Michael Bryson. And as long as the Gauchos avoid the injury bug, they are blessed with depth.
Building upon a 21-win season from 2013-14 isn’t so far fetched.