’Nova assistant Dunleavy named head coach at Quinnipiac
HAMDEN, CONN. >> Every hire, for every head coaching position, is important for a school’s athletic director.
This one felt a little more important than usual for Greg Amodio.
Amodio, in his second year as Quinnipiac’s AD, wants his men’s basketball team to be a bellwether program on campus. He sees the success of the school’s men’s hockey and women’s basketball teams and wants the men’s hoops program to yield similar results.
“In the MAAC, men’s basketball is the No. 1 sport, at least from the standpoint of exposure,” he said Tuesday. “All of our sports, of course, are important, but that’s where the exposure is. You see March Madness and what that can do. Just look what we did with the women’s basketball program, reaching the Sweet 16. Imagine the same excitement with men’s basketball? So, that’s why it’s important.”
With that in mind, Baker Dunleavy felt like the perfect fit for Amodio and Quinnipiac president John Lahey.
“In my conversations before the process started with Dr. Lahey,” Amodio continued, “about who we wanted it to be and what we wanted it to look like and how we wanted to build the program, he clearly demonstrated an understanding of what that was. His thought process was very much in line with ours.”
Dunleavy got a sense of how important Amodio felt the hire was during the interview process.
“You do get that sense at other places,” he noted, “but the thing that I thought was really unique here was the commitment that’s already in place, in terms of facilities and other things like that, that at a lot of other places are a promise. Here, the administration made sure it’s already in place. So, to me, that showed there was a lot to trust here.”
Certainly, the school is putting a lot of faith in Dunleavy, who has no head coaching experience but won an NCAA title as an associate head coach at Villanova. He also hails from a basketball-rich family: his dad, Mike, Sr., coached four different NBA teams and his brother, Mike, Jr., was a star at Duke and is currently playing for the Atlanta Hawks.
Dunleavy may own an NCAA championship ring, but he doesn’t wear it. It’s displayed at home.
“I want our players always to be able to talk about it with me, and I’ll reference it,” he said. “But I don’t want it to be the focal point of what I do as a coach. I’m a head coach now, I want them to know that I’m starting with them, I’m betting on them to start my career. That national championship will be an experience I treasure forever, and my family will, as well. But this is a new experience, and we want to create new memories.”
The question now: which players will create those memories? The team’s top three scorers from last year, freshmen Mikey Dixon and Peter Kiss and Meriden’s Chaise Daniels, have all reportedly requested to be released from their scholarships. A source said Daniels is likely to stay, but Dixon and Kiss are still undecided. The entire team met with Dunleavy on Tuesday morning and were slated to meet with him again on Tuesday night.
As first reported by the Register on Monday, Dunleavy will bring with him former Fordham and Hofstra head coach Tom Pecora and Boston University assistant Shaun Morris as assistants. Yale assistant Anthony Goins will also join the staff.
“My most important recruits are in that locker room right now,” Dunleavy said. “They’ll make those decisions based on their gut. I think most of these decisions are made on relationships, so my job is to let them know what I am, who I am, and try to build a strong foundation in terms of relationship and see what everybody wants to do.”
This hire was important for Amodio for another reason. In 2012, while the AD at Duquesne, Amodio fired head coach Ron Everhart. Everhart had compiled a 99-89 record and three postseason appearances in his six seasons with the Dukes. Not great, but better than any coach had done there in a long while.
He was replaced by Jim Ferry, who won just 60 games over five seasons before being fired a few weeks ago.
Dunleavy first met with Amodio a few weeks ago at the Big East tournament, then the NCAA tournament. The following week, he visited the campus, then met Lahey on March 19 down in Florida, where the Quinnipiac women were making their surprise run through the NCAA’s first two rounds.
After that meeting, said Dunleavy, “I knew if they were a willing party, I wanted in.”