SIUE The Six-Year Overnight Success

One-on-One With Brian Barone

(St. Louis, MO) – Southern Illinois Edwardsville is headed to the NCAA Tournament. The Cougar basketball team is seemingly a six-year overnight success. People outside of the Ohio Valley Conference or the St. Louis, metro area haven’t known about SIUE, but Saturday they earned a bid to ‘The Big Dance’.

Sunday, the whole nation will hear their name announced as part of the ‘field of 68’ and next week we’ll see them participate in ‘March Madness’. While seemingly coming from nowhere, Brian Barone’s program has become a six-year overnight success.

During Saturday night’s OVC championship game against Southeast Missouri, the Cougars trailed early, took control in the middle and then dominated late. OVC ‘Player of the Year’ Ray’Sean Taylor scored 20 points and league’s best defensive team shut down an explosive Redhawk offense. 69-48 was the final as the Cougars earned a program record twenty-second win.

Taylor was named the tournament MVP and teammates Myles Thompson and Ring Malith were also a part of the all-tournament team.

Six-Year Overnight Success

Brian Barone was surprised that he was initially hired to be the Cougar head coach. Barone was an assistant on former coach Jon Harris’ staff and when Harris was relieved of his duties, Barone expected to lose his job too.

During what he thought would be his exit interview, then Director of Athletics Jason Coomer offered him the ‘interim head coach’ title, which Barone was glad to accept and expected that role to last about a month.

Eventually the full time job became his to keep.

Instilling belief in players, the community, the university and holding on to that belief wasn’t always easy. Barone says when other people begin to believe with you, you don’t want to let them down. He wants to help others continue to believe.

Part of that growing belief started with the Wright twins. Lamar and Shamar Wright and Barone had a familial tie. Their late father (Lorenzen) played for Barone’s late father (Tony). Lamar and Shamar became integral parts and foundation stones in the SIUE program.

As Saturday’s championship game was coming to an end, Barone thought back to all the players and supporters that helped make this six-year overnight success a possibility. Even his current players wanted to include their former teammates.

Barone’s first team won just eight games. Year two, brought nine victories and the third year climbed to just eleven. His fourth year, was the breakthrough year. The Cougars won a program record 19 games and followed that with last season’s 17 victories. SIUE is currently 22-11.

Recently Taylor surpassed Shamar Wright’s Division 1 career scoring mark (1,549) on his way to besting the program’s all-time number of 1,949 (Jason Holmes). Taylor has amassed 1,952 Cougar points.

(Part One of our first conversation with Barone six years ago)

Preparing for the Dance – Enjoying the Journey

Barone’s father Tony Barone coached at every level imaginable, won 178 games as a D1 head coach and took two teams to the NCAA Tournament. The younger Barone remembers attending those tournament games as a young boy.

When the horn was sounding and the confetti falling in Evansville on Saturday, it was family first. Hugging siblings, wife (Mimi) and children, he had the sense that his Dad and Mom (Kathy) were there with him. He has a special bond with his late parents.

Every NCAA Tournament bound coach is deluged with extra media responsibilities, boosters to talk to and 100s of text messages and emails. While Barone can’t respond to every demand or request, he knows now is the time to promote SIUE. He wants to promote more than his basketball team, he brags consistently about the SIUE campus, administration and surrounding community.

Recent fan support has been exploding as they nearly sold out the team’s second last game and did sell out the last contest. Billboards starting popping up almost immediately after Saturday’s championship game.

Barone is happily obligated to promote the university.

He loves to ‘coach basketball’. In-other-words, he likes to practice and work and do the drills. His players are eager to be in the gym working, but Barone refuses to miss the enjoyment of this opportunity.

He would love to block out the noise and just practice, but he also wants his players and staff to get the full benefit of the entire experience. Without knowing an opponent, he’s planning on some full roster ‘games’ as part of this week’s practice habits.

(Part Two of our first conversation with Brian Barone six years ago)

What’s Next?

This six-year overnight success must wait until Sunday’s ‘Selection Show’ on CBS to find out who and where they play next. Most, if not every bracketologist predicts the Cougars be part of the ‘First Four’ games played in Dayton, Ohio.

Two games are played Tuesday, March 18 and two on Wednesday, March 19. If the Cougars are slotted to play at UD Arena, they would likely travel Monday. Most of the bracketologists have them playing on Tuesday night.

Dayton is roughly five hours from Edwardsville. You can imagine a significant number of fans making the trek to see the next phase of this six-year overnight success.

Do Good

 

Editor: Here is our entire interview with Brian Barone.