[April 6th, 2020 - Men's basketball offices, Beeghly Center, Youngstown campus]
I have had the opportunity to speak with each member of the previous coaching staff in recent days; and much to their relief, I've determined they're the best options (not that I didn't try elsewhere first). I don't yet have a great number of contacts in the business yet, but I instantly developed a pretty good rapport with these guys. I was able to contact Jeff Neubauer back at Washington prior to all this, and the people he talked to said "Thanks, but no thanks" when asked about joining on here. Fine, no skin off my back....I'll make due with what I have.
My top assistant is going to be Brian DePaoli. He's young (42), and he has a great energy about him. I think he's somewhat annoyed that he wasn't even offered an interview for the job since he was Jerry's right-hand man the last few years, but we cleared the air, and I think we'll have a pretty good working relationship. He's going to spearhead my recruiting efforts, and coach the guards. Part of that recruiting effort Will include trying to retain the services of signee Jimmy Wilson, a pretty high-level recruit for the mid-major level that signed early in November of last year. He's also going to help out with Jared Jackson, although efforts to bring him back into the fold have been terribly unsuccessful.
Secondly, Michael Wernicki is going to be my second assistant. His personality isn't quite as outgoing as Brian's, but he'll be asked to handle some recruiting as well. His strength is in player development on the strength and conditioning side, but he's the only one on staff with any sort of real advance scouting experience. I'll be happy to help him out with that early on, but the goal is to have him 100% handling that by conference play. Jerry gave me a call a few days ago prior to interviewing Michael, and said that he was hard on the players, but they had a great deal of respect and admiration. Honestly, I was on the fence about keeping him until that call. I'm glad he did.
Steve Hall, the third assistant, Will coach the forwards/bigs. He's a bit older than the others (49), but he's probably the most ambitious out of the three. He flat out told me that he's gone if he gets a head coaching opportunity, which I completely understand. My fear is that he'll try to do too much and step on some toes along the way. He's also not the most vigilant when it comes to the players and their academics; but in talking to him, he has a bright basketball mind and really knows his stuff. I think I'm going to trust him with helping me out in game coaching situations and strategy. Not so much with anything else.