Remember Billy Hahn?

General NCS Basketball7

Remember former Maryland assistant basketball coach, Billy Hahn? The guy that sweated even more than Gary Williams and looks like that television/movie star (whose name I can’t recall no matter how many times I commit it to memory)?

After the issues that were unfolding for Hahn at LaSalle, we saw that Hahn was hired by Bob Huggins at West Virginia. Kudo’s to DBR whose blog post on the topic was one of the first links listed on a Google search of Hahn. (We need to learn how to do more search optimization here).

Link to DBR’s entry.

After flaming out at LaSalle as head coach, former Maryland assistant Billy Hahn is going to go to work for new West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. Factoid we didn’t know: Hahn was an assistant at Rhode Island when they had Sly Williams, and when Duke knocked them out of the tournament in 1978, on their way to the Final Four.

This reminds us that we had meant to ask the question of just how much of Florida’s recent success was due to assistant (and former Clemson coach) Larry Shyatt’s input on defense. Same question, different team: how much of Maryland’s decline since 2002 is due to Hahn’s departure?

Just asking.

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General NCS Basketball

7 Responses to Remember Billy Hahn?

  1. RickJ 05/07/2007 at 8:41 AM #

    “How much of Maryland’s decline since 2002 is due to Hahn’s departure?”

    This is always a difficult question to fairly answer. The Terps also lost Dave Dickerson in 2005 when he became the head coach at Tulane – talk about bad timing. Both Hahn & Dickerson were considered terrific recruiters, something Gary Williams really needs. For whatever reason, Maryland didn’t gain any recruiting momentum after their National Championship in 2002.

    Some people win a National Championship and immediately want to win another – Williams seemed to take it as a complete validation of his coaching and got complacent.

  2. legacyman 05/07/2007 at 8:53 AM #

    “Williams seemed to take it as a complete validation of his coaching and got complacent.”

    This is just your opinion as none of us know what happens behind the scenes. Perhaps the two assistants were an integral part of the recruiting process and their loss of contacts was difficult to re-establish in a short time. I don’t know.

    Why didn’t Jimmy V capitalize in 1984 after winning in 1983…difficult question.

  3. RickJ 05/07/2007 at 9:17 AM #

    ^It is my opinion and it was was expressed as an opinion.

    “Perhaps the two assistants were an integral part of the recruiting process and their loss of contacts was difficult to re-establish in a short time.”

    It is Gary Williams job to not let this happen.

    “Why didn’t Jimmy V capitalize in 1984 after winning in 1983…difficult question.”

    V’s recruiting got much better after the 1983 championship. V went to two Final 8’s and won an ACC Title following 1983.

  4. scpackman 05/07/2007 at 9:41 AM #

    Not saying this wasn’t a mistake, but wasn’t Washburn rated overall number 1 coming out of high school?

  5. geojim1990 05/07/2007 at 9:02 PM #

    “…and looks like that television/movie star (whose name I can’t recall no matter how many times I commit it to memory)?”

    If it’s not Brian Cox I don’t know who you are thinking of.

  6. StateFans 05/08/2007 at 7:58 AM #

    Definitely not Brian Cox. It’s a guy that I connect more to playing happy characters. Kind of the “husband” role. Not a real “star”. More of an ‘actor’ who has probably been in a lot of made for TV things.

  7. StateFans 05/08/2007 at 8:01 AM #

    I don’t understand the comment about V not capitalizing after 1983.

    State leveraged that into some great recruiting classes – includuing landing mega-recruits like Washburn and Shackleford. State went to 2 Final 8’s in 1985 and 1986 and won an ACC Title in 1987 and the ACC regular season in 1989.

    By the time the 1990s came, State had the second most number of players on NBA roster than any school in America. That feels like we did a fine job job leveraging 1983.

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