Amidst all the sports juice last week about pro hockey returning to St. John’s was a snippet of news coming out of Southern California, to which exactly no one in St. John’s or Newfoundland understandably paid any attention: that a small NCAA Division I college in the Los Angeles area had hired a new coach.
Except it will have big ramifications on the St. John’s sports front.
The Cal State Northridge basketball program, a little brother to the big-time operations that are Kentucky, Duke and Kansas, hired Mark Gottfried as the new men’s basketball coach.
Gottfried almost immediately announced Jim Harrick would be one of his assistants.
So what, right?
Well, Gottfried coached at North Carolina State, and under him was Jeff Dunlap, who was the director of basketball operations for the Wolfpack for six years.
The same Jeff Dunlap who is currently coaching the St. John’s Edge.
Dunlap played under Gottfried when the former was a player at UCLA and the latter an assistant coach with the Bruins, and he also worked for Gottfried at the University of Alabama.
There’s a connection with Harrick, too. He also guided UCLA, only the second coach other than the legendary John Wooden to take the Bruins to an NCAA title, and just this year was the guest of Dunlap’s for an Edge coaching clinic in St. John’s.
Connect the dots, and you soon come to the conclusion that Dunlap, who is working under a one-year contract with the Edge, will be heading home next season (Northridge is only a three-pointer away from Dunlap’s hometown of North Hollywood, and close to where his wife played her college ball).
Nobody asked, but …
So who will take over the Edge’s coaching duties next year? Current assistant Doug Plumb would seem to be the obvious choice. Plumb, a B.C. native, was an assistant on Kyle Julius’s staff when the London Lightning won the NBL Canada championship last season. Steve Marcus, a volunteer assistant with the Edge, is off to an NCAA school in Louisiana next season to work as a basketball assistant coach and director of operations … Marcus, by the way, was a graduate assistant at NC State under Mark Gottfried and Jeff Dunlap, another example of how it works in the who-you-know business of sports … Dunlap has done a masterful job of putting together the Edge’s roster. So who will take over the St. John’s general manager? Plumb? Do not discount Carl English, who has expressed a desire to be GM, and the Edge ownership loves him. English will be 38 next season, and the body can only hold up for so long …
Of course, you can’t help but wonder if the National Basketball League of Canada will even be around. Most of its teams are not drawing well — only 903 fans turned out last Saturday night in Windsor, Ont., for an Express-Edge game. There were 1,284 fans in Kitchener, Ont., Wednesday night and 1,714 in St. Catharines, Ont., Thursday night. The league is run by the owner of a team, Vito Frijia of the London Lightning, which makes for very, very poor optics. Call the NBL Canada’s telephone number listed on its website, and you reach Frijia’s company, Southside Group. Far as we can tell, there are only two others on the NBL Canada’s executive — deputy commissioner Audley Stephenson and director of officials, Mike Falloon …
“I think the league needs to grow,” says Dunlap, who will be going back to the NCAA after this season. “It needs sponsors, it needs to generate more interest and then you can make money. And then if you can make money, you can reap some of the benefits of that.” Dunlap has his heart in the right place. There are reasons for him to pack it in, but he’s sticking with the Edge until the end, and has his fingers crossed for a league championship. Dunlap won’t be around next season. I’m hopeful the league will be … Dunlap says a television deal is critical to the NBL Canada’s survival. But that’s not going to happen. Hate to say, but outside London and St. John’s, there’s not a lot of interest in the league … Never thought I’d mouth these words: I’d like to see Tiger Woods win The Masters … Nathan MacKinnon is probably the best player in the National Hockey League this year. He’s third in scoring, but his 91 points have come in only 65 games. MacKinnon, from Nova Scotia, played in the 2011 Canada Summer Games. Against Newfoundland, he scored three goals and assisted on two others in a 7-2 Nova Scotia win …
Here’s the difference between a big-time NCAA basketball program and Memorial University, which pretends to offer a Canadian university men’s program. Winning matters in college sports and those who run NC State’s program had seen enough of the downward spiral and fired Gottfried after a six-game losing streak a year ago. Here at Memorial, coach Peter Benoite just finished his 10th season at the helm of the men’s Sea-Hawks’ team, and his overall win-loss record stands at 45-159. In those 10 years, MUN has made the playoffs only three times (including this season, when 5-15 was good enough to secure a post-season berth) and has only one playoff victory. Yet the status quo remains the same. Nowhere else would this be acceptable. What student-athlete in their right mind would want to join that program, and what sponsor would want to attach its name to Sea-Hawks men’s basketball today? …
Riobin Short is The Telegram’s Sports Editor. He can be reached by email [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @TelyRobinShort
