Former Butler coach finds a home with the Redhawks

Archdeacon

table, Todd Lickliter, one of the Miami assistant coaches, stepped onto the floor and talked to Vince Legarza, who’d be inbounding the ball, and guard Quinten Rollins, who hoped to receive the pass.

“At first there was like 1.5 seconds on the clock so Coach Lickliter told me I could take just one dribble and then I had to shoot,” Rollins said. “He wanted me to know exactly what I’d have time to do. Then when they gave us 3.2 seconds, he said ‘OK, you’ve got two dribbles and then a pass or a shot.’ ”

And sure enough, Rollins took Legarza’s pass, dribbled across midcourt and promptly zipped the ball to teammate Will Sullivan, who launched a three-point attempt from the wing just a breath before the buzzer. As he let go of the shot, he was upended by a Tigers defender and though the ball missed its mark, Sullivan got three free throws and made two to put Miami up by nine points at the break.

“That play worked perfectly, just the way Coach Lickliter said it would,” Rollins said. “He really knows what he’s doing. He’s a good coach.”

• Good enough that he was chosen the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Coach of the Year in 2007, when — as Butler’s head coach — he led the Bulldogs to a preseason NIT title and then an NCAA tournament Sweet 16 berth for the second time in four years.

• Good enough that his Bulldogs won 29 games that season, his fourth 20-plus wins in six seasons.

• Good enough that four years ago Iowa gave him a seven-year contract worth $1.2 million a season.

But Lickliter inherited a Hawkeyes program that had been down the year before and had lost two stars. His first two teams went a combined 28-36 and then, after four players transferred, the Hawkeyes — starting two freshmen and two sophomores — went 10-22.

Although Lickliter had a good recruiting class coming in, Iowa officials — further swayed by a dip in attendance — gave him a $2.4 million buyout over three years and fired him.

Sitting in his Millett Hall office — decorated with a newspaper clipping from the Butler glory days, an Iowa sticker on the wall behind his phone, a photo of his son John, a Hawkeyes walk-on, scoring against Purdue and a big poster of a triumphant Cassius Clay after flattening Sonny Liston — Lickliter refused to fire back after his own KO.

“I’ve said almost nothing on the Iowa situation because I don’t want it to sound like excuses,” he said.

The only thing he would say — and he said it with conviction — was that “it was gonna work. It just wasn’t going to work in three years and not without some bumps in the road. But we had a really good class coming in and I believed we had finally gotten it turned.”

While Lickliter was diplomatic, Charlie Coles, Miami’s head coach, pulled no punches:

“To Todd’s credit, Iowa pulls the plug on everybody they get. They don’t understand — it’s Iowa.

“Their facilities aren’t that great. It’s not the best of programs. Why they wouldn’t keep a guy like him, I don’t get it. They were going to be pretty good with the players he was bringing in. He’s just a wonderful, wonderful teacher. There’s something special about him. It’s too bad Iowa couldn’t see it.”

Back in the game

Lickliter grew up in Indianapolis, starred at North Central High, where his dad Arlen was the coach, and then began a college career that took him to UNC Wilmington and a Florida junior college before he played his final two seasons at Butler.

After a couple of high school coaching jobs, Lickliter had two stints as a Butler assistant — separated by two years at Eastern Michigan — and finally took over for Thad Matta as Butler’s head coach in 2001.

Over the next six years, he had great success, none more so than in that final 2006-07 season when Butler was ranked No. 9 in the nation.

Interestingly, one of the only down notes Lickliter remembered from that season happened at the Nutter Center where Wright State beat Butler in the Horizon League tournament final:

“I still have visions of Dashaun Wood. We should have switched out and played him straight up. He made a big three on us. That final game he was terrific.”

Like most competitive coaches, Lickliter wanted to play for national titles and to do that meant being in the NCAA tournament. That prospect is always dicier when you are at a midmajor program, so he jumped at the chance to go to a Big Ten school.

Back at Butler, Brad Stevens — whom he had hired — took over a team that was stocked with players Lickliter had recruited and took them to two straight national title games.

“To have it not work out at Iowa — especially after I left a great situation, a place I loved — I’d be less than honest to say I didn’t have regrets,” Lickliter admitted. “But regrets aren’t going to do you any good. You can’t change anything.”

He returned to Indianapolis — where his wife is a pharmacist and his three sons and their families all live — and spent much of last season visiting other basketball programs.

Larry Bird gave him an open invitation to Indiana Pacers workouts and he spent lots of his time with his best coaching pal, Paul Patterson, who has 713 wins in his 33 seasons at Taylor University in Upland, Ind.

“I’d visit him almost once a week,” Lickliter said. “We’d meet half way between Upland and Indianapolis and just talk about his team and what was going on in the world of basketball. It was really beneficial and, more than ever, I knew there was no way I wanted to be out of coaching.” to start any talk that he was positioning himself to take over the job, especially since the RedHawks longtime assistant and former player Jermaine Henderson likely would apply for the job, as well.

“I told Charlie, ‘I realize there’ll be some talk and if this is going to become some kind of distraction, I’m not going to do it. That’s not why I’m coming here,’ ” Lickliter said. “But I don’t think it has been a problem. Jermaine and (fellow assistant) Jason Grunkemeyer have become my friends.”

Senior Julian Mavunga, the Redhawks star player, feels the same way: “I know he mentioned how he didn’t know how he’d fit in, but I think he’s fit in perfectly with the other coaches.”

And with the players, too, Coles said: “They love him.”

After losing three of their top players this season — two to injury, one who was dismissed from the team — the Redhawks are 8-17 going into tonight’s game against Kent State. Lickliter though speaks glowingly of the staff, the players and especially Coles, the friend who threw him a life line.

“I’m ready to be a head coach again,” Lickliter said. “I told my wife the other day, once you had the thrills I had at Butler, you can’t be satisfied until you have a chance to do it again. I miss the thrill you get when you meet all the challenges that come with it.

“You’re really alive when that’s going on. You just feel so alive.”