Notables

Tim Whittle helped Washington U. reach the top of the Division III basketball mountain for the past two years. But the former Bears assistant coach has a long way to go in his new job as head men's basketball coach at Macalester.

Macalester has lost 33 consecutive games and 40 of its past 42. The Scots have yet to win a men's basketball game in their sparkling new facility. But they have a lot more optimism heading into the summer.

Whittle sat down with D3hoops.com executive editor Pat Coleman on the day he was formally introduced to the Macalester campus community to discuss the long task ahead, his former employer and where he foresees making a difference with the program.

D3: How do you like it so far?
TW: Well, this is day two. It’s been a whirlwind, but an exciting whirlwind: meeting with recruits, trying to find a house, meeting the right people on campus. The overwhelming support in (the welcome luncheon) was a good sign of the expectations and commitment to making this a turnaround, something special. I’m trying to be careful not to say turnaround because they’ve had good teams before, but we want to start building something special, something starting right now, starting Friday when they hired me. I’m already starting to build the relationship with the players, and recruits – we’ve gotten one commitment already and still have five kids who are trying to make up their minds. It’s been a whirlwind but I’m excited to be here, no doubt about it.

D3: Sure, because you’re not in the situation that, say, maybe the Macalester football program is in, where competitiveness has been a long-term problem. This is coming off an 0-25 season but they’ve been competitive in the recent past.
TW: They played for the conference championship in 2004. There’s pieces here and with this new facility, there’s no reason why we can’t get the best of the best, the best student-athletes, the kids who want to excel both academically and athletically, in a brand-new facility.

D3: How much of the team have you seen play so far, on tape or anything?
TW: Zero, I’ve not watched any film previously.

D3: So how do you know the pieces are here?
TW: What I mean by that is the support is here, the commitment by the administration, and now that they have a new coach they can start moving forward. Those are the pieces, not necessarily the pieces on the floor. That I’ll start learning when I’m up here permanently. My No. 1 priority is trying to fill this recruiting class. We graduate four seniors and we’d at least like to get four players in to replace those guys, so that those guys come up with me, they don’t know anything different than my style, my philosophy, my personality, and really set the bar moving forward. I know that this is going to be a process. We’re not going to go 25-0 this year. We’re going to be competitive every time we go on the floor. We’re going to try to defend our home court. We’re going to work hard and build a team atmosphere around the family, so that it’s something that’s important to them not only when they’re here at practice but we’re pulling for each other’s achievements on the floor, off the floor, at home, at Macalester, wherever that might be.

D3: You’ve inherited an empty office, 12 players, I don’t know if there are tapes hidden in those cabinets … but otherwise it looks like you have a pretty long to-do list. What are the priorities right now, other than rounding up those last recruits?
TW: Other than that, getting to know the right people here, the process on campus of who they look for, what they look for. I’ve recruited student-athletes before and I know what that means. I’ve already started recruiting juniors for next year. So, recruiting both in the sense of finishing up this class, but also getting a jump-start on next year’s class. Then, as time permits, watching film so I understand what the pieces of the puzzle are coming back. That’s going to be real important, just for me to understand not the system so much, but what the skill level of the guys really is. So, I’ve got the DVDs of all the games from this year, I’ll start watching those as time permits late at night, trying to figure out what they’re doing, what they can do, what I think we can do with those pieces based on who’s coming back and also the new pieces that we’re trying to get committed.

D3: Do you have a system in mind or are you waiting to see what you have?
TW: I have a system in mind, a true point guard system, of course. That’s something that’s really important to me. A very good point guard can make a good team great. That’ll be my No. 1 priority either in this recruiting class or moving forward. But, more than that, the big priorities of the chemistry of the team and the team philosophy or style will be team basketball, sharing the ball. They really struggled with turnovers this year, they were almost minus-200 in assists to turnovers. Rebounding and defense are really my bread and butter. That’s what I feel like I brought to my former institution is that we got a defensive identity. We stopped people. We did not try to outscore people. And I’m going to bring that same philosophy to Macalester, in that we’re going to let them know we’re here to play defense and they’re going to have to work to get a good shot. That is heart – heart determines rebounding and defense as far as I’m concerned. Those two things are going to be a priority on the floor for us as we start developing our own style and our own mentality of what Macalester basketball is with me as the new head coach.

D3: I notice you didn’t refer to Wash U by name ...
TW: Yeah.

D3: ... but your ‘former institution.’ How much of that can you let go, and how much of that can you incorporate into what you do here?
TW: I think the X’s and O’s have been an evolution between Coach (Mark) Edwards’ philosophy and my tweaking. So I think a lot of what we do will be similar to Wash U but we’re not going to just adopt Wash U’s system and make it Macalester’s. I think as a head coach that’s what we do. Coach Edwards gave me this advice very early, is that ‘you don’t have to agree with everything I say in my coaching philosophy, but when you’re a head coach you’re going to take pieces of every coach you played for, worked for, played against and figure out what you will do and won’t do similar and dissimilar to them. And that’s probably the best coaching advice I’ve ever gotten. He and I have a tremendous relationship, where if I feel like I don’t agree with something I can express it. And that doesn’t mean he’s going to change his mind, but he just says, ‘put it in your book, put it in your notebook.’ So I have a notebook of things that we agree on and things we disagree on and we’ll use those to start building something special here. A lot of what I learned is not X’s and O’s from Wash U and from Coach Edwards. It’s how to motivate, how to be competitive every day in practice and be the most competitive team on the floor every night. So those things we’ll definitely adopt, because that’s what really has lead to this success at Wash U most recently the last three years, is we weren’t the most athletic team, but we were the best team in terms of chemistry and working together. I’m going to bring some of those same things to Macalester.

D3: Macalester has a reputation as being tough to get athletes into. Did you talk with people in admissions in terms of how things would work?
TW: Sure. It’s going to be a very similar situation to Wash U. It’s not necessarily finding the needle in the haystack. You’re trying to identify the right kind of students. You have a defined pool you know you can recruit, so you don’t go outside that pool trying to convince admissions that that person could be successful here. You recruit who you know could be successful and you set them up for success when they come to Macalester. That’s the same approach we had at Wash U. There’s not slots, there’s not any promises that because they are a student-athlete they are going to be admitted. It’s the same process of if Macalester seems like it’s the right fit for you, and you’re admissible, then you should be excited about it, to have the best of both worlds. It’s a great academic setting and building a tradition in basketball. It’ll be the same approach of what I’ve done at Wash U for the last five years, of finding the true student-athlete who understands what it means to get a degree and be a student-athlete at a place like Macalester.

D3: Macalester as an institution draws not just all over the country but internationally. Are there parts of the country that they haven’t drawn from in terms of men’s basketball that you think you’d be able to tap into?
TW: You know, I think that was one of the things they really liked about my background was my national recruiting base at Washington U. It’s a very similar type student to Macalester, and with my recruiting contacts, it’s not going to be any different. I’m going to still talk to the same coaches, talk to the same club coaches, go to the same summer and spring events and get the same type of kids. That was very attractive to them, I’m sure, just for that simple reason is they can get national kids that maybe at this point they’re just not getting for basketball. So, I’m looking forward to expanding that recruiting base based on my previous knowledge and experience of getting kids from the Pacific Northwest and California and Texas and Florida and the Northeast, which I think we can really tap into. It doesn’t appear that they’ve done that most recently.

This past season, Macalester men's basketball had a sparkling new facility and not much else to write home about. The Scots, in fact, went 0-25, losing by an average of 22.4 points per game in a season that was completed by Feb. 18.

But did we mention the new gym and overall facility is really nice?

Macalester hasn't exactly been known for a commitment to athletics. The Scots pulled their football program out of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference after the 2001 season marked the second of back-to-back 1-9 seasons. They've won 17 games in the seven years since.

More recently, the women's basketball program was put on hiatus six games into the 2004-05 season and played only half a conference schedule the following season. And the men's basketball team has lost 40 of its past 42 games.

It seems a long way from the top of Division III basketball. But that's where the new Mac men's head coach comes from, and he brings optimism with him. More in an interview with new Macalester coach Tim Whittle.

Susquehanna's Joel Patch, Colorado College's Melanie Auguste, Ohio Wesleyan's Kyle Holliday and Randolph-Macon's Amanda Hiltunen have been selected this year among winter sports participants from all three NCAA divisions for an NCAA postgraduate scholarship.

The winners will receive one-time, nonrenewable grants of $7,500.

NCAA postgraduate scholarships are awarded annually to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition.