Darris Nichols is the next head coach at La Salle:

 

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Nichols sat behind me in a sociology class at West Virginia back in 2006. It was “race relations 101,” ironic perhaps since 97% of the campus was white. The other 3% was the football and basketball team. Not the most diverse place in the world, but that’s neither here nor there.

What’s important is that Darris was a GREAT player at WVU. He came off the bench his first two seasons, a backup point guard on the Elite Eight and Sweet 16 teams coached by John Beilein and featuring Kevin Pittsnogle and Cleveland Cavaliers GM Mike Gansey. He claimed the starting job as a junior and senior, helping Bob Huggins’ first WVU team beat Duke in the round of 32 to return to the Sweet 16. His backup that season was Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla.

Playing for both John Beilein and Bob Huggins, you get the best of both worlds. You learn about elite, guard-oriented offense and smothering, high-effort defense. So many of those players are having good post-playing careers. Nichols was one who went undrafted, had a cup of coffee in Europe, then came back to start coaching. He had a GA gig at WVU before landing assistant jobs at Northern Kentucky, Wofford, Louisiana Tech, and Florida, on Mike White’s staff. Then he took his first head coaching job with his hometown Radford Highlanders, where he went 68-63 and 33-33 in Big South play. He’s coming off a 20-13 season.

There’s a bit of head scratching with this hire, at least from initial reaction on social. La Salle hiring a 38-year-old who was a few games above .500 at Radford? Fair question, but here’s another one – is La Salle some hot job? Is it a destination job? No. It is not. Dr. John got the Explorers into the tournament once during his 14-year tenure, Ashley Howard couldn’t muster a winning season, and then Fran Dunphy came home to more or less stabilize the program and bridge the gap before retiring. Who was going to replace Fran, John Calipari? Rick Pitino? Nichols is a young guy with some fresh ideas and a modern approach to coaching. You’re looking for someone to infuse that program with some life and be at least competitive in the Atlantic 10. La Salle has been bang average since Tyrone Garland hit the Southwest Philly Floater and Darris Nichols is the type of guy you’re gonna get to coach this program. Can he recruit Philadelphia? Can he work the portal? What about NIL? We’ll find out soon enough.