Put me down as one of many who was shocked upon hearing the news.
I admit, I never saw Brad Stevens leaving Butler, at least not for a long time. And for an NBA job? That was an even further possibility from my mind.
If anything, I thought those who had him pegged as Mike Krzyzewksi’s successor at Duke might be on to something, although I wondered about that, too. It would make sense from one standpoint, but at the same time, the head coaching job at Duke is one of those jobs that it’s hard to imagine going to someone outside the program’s family even if there may seem to be a lack of obvious candidates.
But with that out of the way, the Boston Celtics have made a great hire. And college basketball has lost one of its best young coaches.
Stevens is an understated coach who never chased dollars, even though he had that chance. The unparalleled success he led Butler to gave him that, but he had a good job in a good place. Clearly, he felt he could win at Butler, which he did – and there was no reason to think that would stop anytime soon. Even a change of conferences – another step up – was unlikely to change that. The Bulldogs went from the Horizon League, where they were the signature program, into the Atlantic 10, and won right away. In fact, they were no small part of the Atlantic 10 having one of its best seasons ever in 2012-13.
As of Monday, Butler is now in the Big East, which has a whole new look, and one that makes more sense than before. The geographic footprint makes more sense, and basketball there still figures to be a great product, with the Bulldogs being no small part of it. It’s another step up for the program.
It’s hard to understate what Stevens accomplished at Butler. Getting to the national championship game is hard enough, especially for Butler, a program that doesn’t have the resources of many of the big boys. They have a lot of other things to sell recruits on, and they have had a run of great coaches that most recently culminated with Stevens, but none of those coaches got them to the Final Four, let alone two straight national championship games. Besides that, he set a record for the most wins by a Division I coach in the first six seasons of his career with 166.
And in light of that, it’s easy to see why an NBA team would be interested, even if they think at first that he might never leave his current job as many of us did. There’s no risk; the worst that could happen is that he isn’t interested (as expected) and they move on. For the Celtics, he was interested, and the best-case scenario has happened.
It’s also easy to think this will be a big hit to Butler. Taking nothing away from what Stevens did, however, Butler will be fine. They have succeeded through coach after coach, and the current athletic director, Barry Collier, is one of those coaches. The program has won not just because of the coaches, although they have all been a key part of that success. Collier created five pillars of the program called “The Butler Way” that was featured on Forbes.com several months ago. In light of that, one should expect little to change from a personnel standpoint since they recruit players who fit that culture and that is among the things that attract recruits there. Incoming freshmen are being asked on social media what they think about this, but my guess is they are surprised but not going anywhere as a result of Stevens’ departure.
Stevens isn’t the first coach to leave Butler for what appears to be greener pastures (no pun intended in this case), and he won’t be the last. He might be the first to make us believe he would never leave given that he didn’t already, but that doesn’t change the reality.
What we will also see is that college basketball will be fine despite losing one of its young stars on the bench. There are plenty of other great coaches, including some around Stevens’ age. VCU’s Shaka Smart is one of the first who comes to mind, and you can add in the likes of Memphis’ Josh Pastner and Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew. There are plenty of assistant coaches that will one day run their own program and some who will be head coaches for the first time in 2013-14 who may one day be in this discussion.
It’s tough to watch Brad Stevens leave the college game, but life will go on at Butler and around the country. It was a surprise, but surprises happen. I never saw it coming, and I know many others didn’t, either. Before long, that will fade and we’ll be back to thinking about how great college basketball is.
