This is insane
The NCAA Tournament Thread
- Thread starter lawmanfan
- Start date
all one can say is it is good to be a Uconn college basketball fan with numbers like that. Sustained excellence men and women.
We cling to one Final Four in the modern era like it is a badge of honor.
Coach Pitino will get us back there, at least I sure hope so.
Coach Joe maybe eventually a Sweet Sixteen?
Need video of Hurley screaming at the gate attendants, or maybe the pilotsThe UConn plane delay getting so much attention is safely not up there w Lindberg Atlantic crossing as endurance tests go
L J S A
Well-known member
Watch woman go absolutely nuts as she’s dragged off Spirit Airlines flight in cartoonish meltdown
“Why are you acting like I’m a rascal?” the woman shouted as cops cuffed and arrested her.
nypost.com
L J S A
Well-known member
Nate Oats was a high school coach when meeting Dan Hurley led to job as assistant to start path to Final Four
More than a decade after Oats was hired by Bobby Hurley at Buffalo, he'll lead Alabama against Dan Hurley and UConn in the Final Four
www.cbssports.com
L J S A
Well-known member
Guy clearly didn't look at the point totals
*Although I guess he was just pointing out the name and not screwing up the order.
This is what's happening to Mid Major programs now. Last year his best player left and this year his best two players are leaving. Coach Claxton, class act that he is, has been very supportive of his players doing what is best for them.
Redenbacher
Well-known member
Not just the Mid Majors. It’s about to happen to Seton Hall.
Speedy will be leaving as well soon enough...
It’s not fair for the mid majors but in theory they should now be able to grab higher rated HS kids that high majors don’t have room for. Granted they will probably only be able to keep the kids for a year or two.
carmineabbatiello
Well-known member
That's where Yale basketball eats.
Gee, I guess I missed a lot by staying away from this thread for awhile. I am glad I did.
Thanks lawmanfan and the other mods for cleaning it up.
He lost two years to the FBI probe into college basketball. Now he's in the Final Four
Preston Murphy was caught up in an investigation of college basketball but proclaimed his innocence. Nate Oates gave him a second chance.
theathletic.com
Alabama’s Preston Murphy is in the Final Four after losing two years to FBI probe
Brendan Marks
GLENDALE, Ariz. — We’ve all been there before: furiously scrolling through an iPhone photo library, desperately searching for that one elusive picture.
Now it’s Preston Murphy’s turn, the Alabama assistant coach swiping and swiping inside the Crimson Tide’s locker room at State Farm Stadium. He’s smiling — it has to be there somewhere — and donning a crimson “West Region Champs” shirt. Finally, he stops. Found it. Murphy rotates his phone, flashing the screen to a waiting reporter:
It’s a custom edit he made, of two photos 11 years apart. On top? There’s Murphy in 2013 — when he was still an assistant coach at his alma mater, Rhode Island — playing with Oats’ daughter, Jocie, in the stands of a high school gym; that was the day Oats led Romulus (Mich,) Senior High to a state championship victory. The other photo?
Murphy and Jocie again … on the court of Crypto.com Arena last weekend, after Alabama beat Clemson to make the first Final Four in school history.
“For it to actually come to fruition,” Murphy says, “it’s just an incredible feeling.”
For all the star-crossed connections in this Final Four, all the (literal) big names and storylines, perhaps no coach has been through more to get to this point than Murphy.
As a player, he and Cuttino Mobley had the Rams on the brink of the Final Four in 1998. He then coached under Dan Hurley — whose Connecticut team Alabama faces Saturday — at Rhode Island, and helped get Oats his first Division I college gig at Buffalo. Later, at Creighton, Murphy helped Greg McDermott build a Big East title team … only to get caught up in the FBI’s investigation into college basketball. Murphy was never charged, but for meeting with agent Christian Dawkins — one of Murphy’s longtime friends from growing up in Saginaw, Mich. — the NCAAhit him with a two-year show-cause penalty.
“I’m not sure anyone in that whole process,” McDermott says, “got treated more unfairly than he did.”
Adds Oats: “Everybody deserves a second chance, but it’s not even like he deserved it. He needed it to get made right, in my opinion.”
Which is why last summer, when all three of Alabama’s assistant coaches left for new jobs, Murphy — who coached grassroots ball the last two years — was one of the first names who came to Oats’ mind. “You’d like to hire your staff right away in the spring; his show cause didn’t expire until the middle of the summer,” Oats says. “But he was well worth the wait.” Now, Murphy is finally where he’s always wanted to be: standing in a college basketball locker room in April, 80 minutes from a championship.
“It’s very gratifying,” he says. “For me, life’s a roller coaster. I try to stay even-keeled through the ups and the downs, persevere, and then you come back a little better, a little stronger.”
With 59.3 seconds left in the 1998 Elite Eight, Murphy’s Rhode Island team led Stanford by six.
Then everything unraveled. Stanford scored 12 points in the final minute to complete an incredible comeback and deny the Rams — and Murphy — the program’s first berth in the Final Four. Murphy figured he’d get back the next season; instead, Rhode Island lost in the first round.
“And that was it,” Murphy says. “It came to a crashing end. So I realized I would never make it there as a player.”
After a brief professional career in Holland and Belgium, Murphy pivoted to coaching, still single-mindedly set on making it to college basketball’s crowning weekend. Three seasons coaching high school in northern Rhode Island was enough for Murphy to get his foot in the door at Boston College as a director of operations. By 2010, he was back at Rhode Island, trying to restore the Rams to the heights he knew as a player.
One player he targeted as part of that process? E.C. Matthews … who played for Oats at Romulus.
“But even before that, I was recruiting his players,” Murphy says. “I didn’t get some of the other ones, but I was always in there. We developed a great relationship.”
One day, Oats rented a minivan and drove Matthews (and another player, Wes Clarke) from Michigan to the Northeast. They took unofficial visits to UConn and Rhode Island, and Matthews was so convinced by Murphy’s recruiting efforts that he committed to the Rams. Murphy also made a lifelong friend in Oats. They’d hang out at Final Four events together, both hoping to one day coach on that stage. “He said he’d always wanted to get into college, and if there’s a way you could help me at some point,” Murphy says. “I said, of course.” When Bobby Hurley got the Buffalo job in 2013 after one season as Dan’s assistant at Rhode Island, Murphy told him: Hire Nate; you won’t regret it.
“I had a part in it,” Murphy says. “It was like a no-brainer.”
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He lost two years to the FBI probe into college basketball. Now he's in the Final Four
Preston Murphy was caught up in an investigation of college basketball but proclaimed his innocence. Nate Oates gave him a second chance.
theathletic.com
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In 2014, McDermott reached out to Oats. He was looking to hire an assistant and trusted Oats from his days recruiting at Romulus. McDermott asked him: Who’s the best recruiter that came through your gym? “I said Preston Murphy,” Oats recalls.
It took another year, but the Creighton coach eventually hired Murphy on his staff. “I was really impressed with his enthusiasm and his passion and knew that with a little experience, he was going to be terrific,” McDermott says, “and obviously when I hired him, he did not disappoint.”
Murphy instantly became one of McDermott’s best assistants, both from an Xs and Os perspective but also as a recruiter. He was pivotal in the Bluejays landing Ty-Shon Alexander and Marcus Zegarowski — a pair of eventual All-Big East guards — and, in McDermott’s words, “had his fingerprints all over our Big East championship team” in 2020. In Murphy’s four seasons in Omaha, Creighton won 82 games and made two NCAA Tournaments.
But in March 2019 — a year and a half after the FBI first announced 10 arrests as part of its investigation into college basketball — a federal indictment accused Murphy of accepting $6,000 from an undercover FBI agent during a meeting between Murphy and Dawkins. A day later, Creighton placed Murphy on administrative leave; he ultimately resigned the following November. According to Murphy’s attorney, Murphy passed a polygraph test that said he did not keep the money, take action with it, or maintain any relationship with Dawkins after that meeting. “The old ‘innocent until proven guilty’ didn’t really apply in those scenarios,” McDermott says, “and at Creighton, we did everything we could to keep him employed and support him during that process.”
In June 2021, the NCAA hit Murphy with a two-year show cause. McDermott reckons Murphy called him or Creighton director of operations Jeff Vanderloo almost every day during that time — and he still does now. During the time away from college hoops, Murphy coached at the grassroots level and attended multiple NBA and college practices, trying to stay connected with the game while simultaneously sharpening his craft. He spent time with the Pacers and Celtics, as well as UConn, Rhode Island, and Boston College.
“I just wanted to stay around the game, “Murphy says. “It was something that I wanted to take advantage of the time not coaching, and get better at my craft … Stay in tune with the latest trends.”
He also maintained his longstanding relationship with Oats, who by then had taken the Alabama job. “He got screwed through that whole thing, but every time I called him, he had the most positive outlook on life,” Oats says. “He’s just a guy you want around your program.” ”
Oats had to wait until June for Murphy’s show cause to expire, but he was willing to do so.
“He’s one of the best recruiters, best people in this business,” Oats says. “I had an opening, I needed a great recruiter — so it was a great mesh.”
Murphy’s first task at Alabama?
Taking over as the lead recruiter for five-star 2024 forward Jarin Stevenson, and convincing him to reclassify to 2023. “Preston came right in and started recruiting me,” Stevenson says. “He was the main one.”
Murphy and Stevenson knew each other from their respective time in grassroots ball — although their teams never faced off last spring — and Murphy quickly sold Stevenson on all that Alabama had to offer. A modern, spacing-centric offense. An immediate role, given the team’s roster turnover. And a clear model to follow, in former stretch-forward Noah Clowney — the 21st pick in last summer’s NBA Draft — if Stevenson hoped to one day make the league.
Murphy was one of the people Stevenson leaned on when he first got to campus; they’d play putt-putt or darts or NBA2K together, building on the quick relationship they’d established in the summer. And it didn’t matter if Stevenson wanted to work out at 11 p.m. or 6 a.m.; Murphy would always be there.
“I’m a big development guy, being able to be in the gym with you, continuing to help you grow your game,” Murphy says. “(Jarin’s) a kid that wants to be very good.”
And in the Elite Eight vs. Clemson? The fruits of both their labor. The 6-foot-11 Stevenson scored a team-high (and career-best) 19 points, including five made 3-pointers, to down the Tigers.
“He gave me confidence to come in here,” Stevenson said in Alabama’s postgame locker room, “and he knew that I’d develop.”
Without Murphy, maybe Stevenson isn’t here. And without Stevenson, maybe Alabama isn’t.
And yet …“I loved him, he needed back in, I needed an unbelievable assistant, and it all came together at the same time,” Oats says, “and here we are in the Final Four.”