The Holy Land of Hoops

Press conference starting.

Great hire for Butler!!

http://butlersports.com/watch/?Live=58&type=Live

GREAT RECAP HERE: http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/co ... 395622001/

Interesting note: Jordan is Butler’s first black head coach in basketball, something Collier recognized.
“It is important,” Collier said. “But frankly, we’re always looking for the best we can get. And he is.”
Jordan said he was humbled and honored to be first. As he put it:
“Again, black, yellow, green, orange … as long as you bleed Butler blue, that’s what matters.”

LaVall brings the number of African-American HC's in the NBE to 40% (Ewing, Jordan, Leitao, Cooley). Both hires this year were African-American, former players.

In contrast, the B1G has none. This article details the lack of diversity in the B1G HC ranks, and notes... "The ACC, SEC and Big East had more black coaches than white in various seasons throughout the 2000s."
http://www.startribune.com/black-coache ... 415396354/

First Black head coach in ANY Butler sport.

He's going to be great, and will stick around for a long time.

Nildogg wrote:First Black head coach in ANY Butler sport.

He's going to be great, and will stick around for a long time.

Agree 100%!!

I think we're seeing a succession plan that our schools should take to retain our coaches.

The Butler Way should be the way of the NBE. And I think it will be.

The Jordan hire has a lot of the same parallels to the Ewing hire. Some people criticized Georgetown for not parting ways with the JT era but they're loony... absolutely nuts!! Every NBE school needs to think hard about keeping it in the family.

I believe that's what we're seeing now. Xavier has an in-house succession plan to Chris Mack (which is SMART).. That job should never go on the open market. If our schools try to get the next big thing, it leaves room to be used as a stepping stone. Travis Steele will be the next guy at Xavier because he' earned it..

LaVall Jordan and Patrick Ewing have set a good precedent this year. I think we'll be seeing both gentlemen around for a good long time. These are exactly the hires we should be making.

Looks like Kampen is the first staff hire for Jordan. Not sure what kind of recruiter he will be but he has that Butler tie.

Jon Rothstein‏
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Emerson Kampen is expected to remain on LaVall Jordan's staff at Butler as an assistant coach, per a source. Was previously in admin role.

CrawfishBucket wrote:Looks like Kampen is the first staff hire for Jordan. Not sure what kind of recruiter he will be but he has that Butler tie.

Jon Rothstein‏
Verified account
@JonRothstein

Emerson Kampen is expected to remain on LaVall Jordan's staff at Butler as an assistant coach, per a source. Was previously in admin role.

Don't know about his recruiting ability (TBD), but he is a good talent evaluator. He found Baldwin.

This lengthy article on the CBS Sports College Basketball homepage is well worth a read:

LaVall Jordan is Butler's new coach because of a road trip with his father in 1996 – Matt Norlander, CBS Sports - July 5, 2017

Butler's new coach isn't a big name, but neither were Brad Stevens, Thad Matta and Chris Holtmann.

Always connected to Butler, LaVall Jordan comes home - USA Today - July 9, 2017 - 5:31 PM EDT