Kennedy tries to get comfortable with ‘hot seat’

By David Driver
Posted: October 28, 2009

The preseason college basketball magazines have hit the newsstands and one of the earliest, and one of my favorites, is Athlon, out of Nashville. This year’s publication has a section called “12 coaches on the hot seat.” The list of coaches at Division I schools is in alphabetical order and coming in at No. 3 is Pat Kennedy, who will begin his sixth season at Towson when the Tigers play at home against Miami of Ohio on Nov. 13.

It is somewhat surprising that Kennedy would make the list, but not because he has compiled a less than stellar mark of 58-96 in five years at Towson. What is notable is the other 11 schools, nearly all from power conferences, on the list: SMU, Georgia Tech, Oregon, Texas Tech, Auburn, Iowa, North Carolina State, Iowa State, St. John’s, DePaul and Fordham. That is not the kind of attention that the Colonial Athletic Association, which sent George Mason to the Final Four in 2006, wants to get. I guess it is a credit to the CAA that Athlon would even notice a coach from a mid-major conference who has not developed a winner at his present locale.

“This is a key year for us. We have become competitive, but with the way the conference has developed people may not see that like we see it,” Kennedy said when asked about the “hot seat” list. “By year five, an administration may say, ‘We need more wins.’ This is realistic. I think this is a key year.”

Kennedy enters the season with 474 wins, which ranks him 21st among active Division I coaches. He has coached at Iona (he took over for the late Jim Valvano), Florida State, DePaul, Montana and now Towson. There are only five active coaches who have spent the previous 29 years as a Division I head coach, and two reside in Maryland: the Terps’ Gary Williams has logged 31 consecutive seasons, and Kennedy checks in at 29. The others are Jim Calhoun (37, at Connecticut), Mike Krzyzewski (34, Duke) and Jim Boeheim (33, Syracuse).

That track record has not produced a winning season in five years at Towson. The Tigers, under Kennedy, have gone 6-23, 12-16, 15-17, 13-18 and 12-22. Kennedy hopes this is the season the Tigers, picked to finish ninth in the 12-team CAA, make some noise. He added to his staff assistant coach Danny Nee, a head mentor for 26 years at Ohio, Nebraska, Robert Morris and Duquesne and a former scout for the Utah Jazz.

Kennedy, who came to Towson in 2004, notes he has two years left on his contract. But it should also be noted he was not hired at Towson by current director of athletics Mike Hermann, who got the job in 2006. And it should be pointed out that state universities, especially during these economic times, are going to think long and hard before eating a hefty contract before it has run its course. Hermann did make a change with the head football position after the 2008 season, bringing in Rob Ambrose for the 2009 season.

“We had six new players last year. I made the decision to go with young guys,” Kennedy said. “Now we will see if that works out.” Towson returns senior guard Josh Thornton, who began his career at Georgetown and averaged 10.9 points per game last year, and junior forward Jarrell Smith, who averaged 9.8 points after transferring from Colorado State. The Tigers also return sophomore guard Troy Franklin (Mt. Carmel). One of the two freshmen is 6-foot-7 forward Isaiah Philmore, a product of John Carroll who was recruited by ACC and Big East schools, among others. He is from a military family and averaged 40 points per game as a freshman at a school in Kansas before his family moved to Harford County.

Another new face with the Towson program is Hammond High graduate Phil Cohen, a 2002 graduate of Maryland who spent the past seven years on the staff of the men’s program at what is now Polk State College in Winter Haven, Fla. “We are happy he has returned to the area as our coordinator of basketball operations,” Kennedy said.

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