Philly Gym Rat (The Perry “QM” McMullin Story)

[CoachC]

Grats on the nice win in round 1!

[PointGuard]

Yeah, it was almost too easy. I kept expecting the lights to go out in the arena.

[PointGuard]

NCAA Tournament—Round 2

Game #: , 2021; 6th seed #14 New Hampshire Wildcats (27-4) vs 3rd seed #5 Florida Gators (28-4)

Phew, we just jumped into a whole new level of competition. Florida had a great season this year, posting the best record (14-2) in the Southeastern Conference although they stumbled in the conference tournament. Had they been upset in that tournament, they’d almost certainly have been a #1 seed. It seems a travesty that the selection committee dropped them to a 3rd seed. I wouldn't be surprised if the Gators feel they've been dissed by the selection committee and have come into the tournament with something to prove.

The Gators have a great history. They’ve been in the NCAA Tournament each of the last 10 years, getting to the championship game twice and winning it all once (10 years ago). Their overall record the last 10 years has been 295-58. In round 1 of this year’s tournament, they beat Weber State 76-55.

Florida is loaded with studs. They have 4 players scoring in double figures, SG Erik Beshara (18.8 ppg), 6th man Deon Nicholson (12.2 ppg), PG Danny Jackson (11.4 ppg), and C Wesley Sutton (11.0 ppg). We’ll start by hounding Beshara, but switch to whoever gets the hot hand.

Florida runs a slow paced offense and has an outside attack. On defense they primarily employ a 1-3-1 zone.

We fell behind early, but fought back to close within one at 15-14 just 6 minutes into the game. But then our shooting went south and Florida slowly pulled away from us. For the entire half, we pulled down 15 rebounds to Florida’s 16 and we turned the ball over just 5 times to the Gator’s 7. So why were we trailing 40-30? Two things: (1) They hit 48% of their shots, we only could manage 36%; (2) they got to the line 8 more times and made 8 more points on free throws than us. DeVante Smith scored 9 to lead us offensively.

Florida played good defense in the first half and clamped down further in the 2nd half. We trailed by 20 with 10 minutes to play and had only scored 6 points at that point in the half. We then cut Florida’s lead to 58-48 with 4-1/2 minutes to go. But Florida’s experience and talent held sway and they cut off our run.

Final Score: Florida-68, New Hampshire-54. New Hampshire season record: 27-5.

Scoring leaders: Kirtz-13, Howard-11, Smith-9.

Rebound leaders: Kresse-9, Houston-8, Stone-7.

Assist leaders: Kirtz-5.

Player of the Game: Florida’s SG Erik Beshara-17 pts, 6 reb, 3 assists.

Coach’s Pat on the Back Award: PG Kueth Kirtz-13 pts, 2 reb, 5 assists, 1 steal.

Other notes: While we shot well against Michigan’s 1-3-1 zone, Florida just had a much more difficult 1-3-1 zone. We only hit 34% of our shots. With Florida knocking down 48% of their shots and also scoring 13 more points at the foul line than us completely overwhelmed our small advantages in rebounding (32-29) and turnovers (19-15).

Tough to lose, but we played pretty well against a very good team…one that could well go the distance in this tournament.

[PointGuard]

Sweet 16: 3rd seed #5 Florida-61, 2nd seed #6 North Carolina-50

Elite 8: 3rd seed #5 Florida-63, 5th seed #12 Charlotte-56

Final 4: 3rd seed #5 Florida-62, 4th seed #8 New Mexico-51

Championship: 3rd seed #5 Florida-52, 1st seed #4 Syracuse-48

(At least we can say we lost to the eventual Champions)

[PointGuard]

Connecticut-63, Fresno State-48

[PointGuard]

Ohio State-64, Missouri-43

[PointGuard]

America East 2nd Team All-Conference: C Clay Houston

America East Coach of the Year: Perry “QM” McMullin

[PointGuard]

The prestige rating for New Hampshire improved to 16 (+5) and the prestige for the America East Association dropped to 16 (-1). New Hampshire’s facilities remained rated as C+.

[PointGuard]

We groomed a highly ranked JC power forward all winter and his interest continually increased, but by the time I visited him in March, his interest waned.

We then refocused our efforts on two SF’s (one HS senior and the other a JC sophomore) and a JC sophomore PF. While the JC players were more highly rated, I finally decided to offer the last scholarship to the HS senior, since he will provide more continuity for the program.

[PointGuard]

Ten colleges show interest in hiring me as a head coach. My typical pick would have been Texas Southern, a low prestige (11) team that’s posted one winning season (15-14) in the past 10 years, has had 10 or fewer wins in 6 of those 10 seasons, and was 10-19 last year.

But the words of Coach Finnegan, just before he died, resonate within me, “If the opportunity arises for you to take on a completely new challenge, don’t let it slip by. Take it and run with it. For in change there is growth. And in growth there is fulfillment.”

So I go through the list of colleges again. 6 of them have substantially higher prestige ratings (ranging between 32 and 38) than where I’ve coached thus far. The highest rated is Tulane and they just finished a good season (18-12), but two pique my interest since they are in a major conference, the Pac-12, even though both teams typically in the lower reaches of the conference standing. They certainly offer a new challenge since they have a far lower recruiting budget than other teams in the conference and aren’t in high population areas.

One part of me says to stay at New Hampshire and see how far I can take the Wildcats, particularly since I think they will be an even stronger team next year than they were this past season. There also is this desire to work with the good players I’ve recruited and developed at New Hampshire.

But I finally decide to act on Coach Finnegan’s counseling and make a jump. I interview with Washington State and Oregon State…and choose…the Washington State Cougars.