Even though the NCAA tourney has been canceled we can still hear from the players/coaches who were good enough to make it. On Tuesday Robert Morris beat St. Francis PA 77-67 in the NEC tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. The Colonial lost to FDU in last year’s NEC tourney but bounced back this year to claim the school’s 1st NCAA tourney bid since 2015. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with assistant coach Mike Iuzzolino about what it feels like to make the NCAA tourney as a coach in 2020 after making it as a player in 1991.
You began your college career at Penn State before transferring to St. Francis PA: why did you decide to transfer, and what made you choose the Red Flash? It was just not the right fit for me at Penn State and the opportunities I was hoping for did not transpire. St. Francis was closer to home and Coach Jim Baron did a great job of selling me on playing for him.
In 1991 you averaged 24.1 PPG and were named NEC POY/conference tourney MVP: what is the secret to being a great scorer, and what did it mean to you to win a title? Scoring is just about the work you put in: you have to embrace the daily grind of working hard on your craft. I was not the most athletic person and have never dunked in my life but I had good fundamentals in terms of shooting/passing/dribbling. Winning the tourney was 1 of the highlights of my career: it is really hard in a 1-bid league.
You were also named All-Academic POY: how did you balance your work on the court with your work in the classroom? You have to be committed/dedicated and stay organized about what you want to accomplish in your life. There are very few distractions when you are in a small town. The people around me helped me become successful: I had great professors/counselors/coaches who made sure I got the job done in the classroom.
You played 2 years with the Dallas Mavericks and then overseas in Italy/Greece/Spain: what is your favorite memory from your time in the NBA, and what was the biggest difference between the NBA vs. pro basketball overseas? The 1 thing I am proudest of is that I did not just sit on the bench and collect a paycheck: I averaged 9 PPG during my 2 years. I had some productivity and played a lot of minutes in a lot of games. In my era the athletic nature of the game was different with more athletes in the NBA, but you could see it evolving over time in Europe with great young players who eventually made it to the NBA.
You work for Coach Andy Toole: what makes him such a good coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him so far? He wants us involved in all aspects of the program and wants our opinion before making any decisions. As much as Andy loves basketball he is such a well-rounded person and is very family-oriented. Both of our kids have always been around the program. He has taught me the importance of building a culture within your program and not deviating from that.
You had a stretch in late-February where you lost 3 out of 4 games: how were you able to turn things around 2 weeks ago? We just kept our guys with a very narrow focus on the task at hand as well as tried to motivate them. We just had to change some small aspects to win games.
2 of your starters are Jon/Josh Williams: what is it like to recruit a pair of brothers, and what is it like to have them on the same team? It is very special for them to play together and to win a conference championship. You love coaching high-character kids like them and they work hard every day: I have so much respect for their accomplishments/work ethic.
In the NEC tourney title game last Tuesday you had a 10-PT win over your alma mater to clinch the title: how much of a home-court advantage did you have in Moon Township, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterward? What makes a 1-bid league so great is that the best regular season team gets to host games in the postseason. It was a great atmosphere but you still have to play the game at a high level and get your guys ready. Our guys worked so hard all year to reach that point: a guy like Dante Treacy had a rough patch as a freshman but came back as a sophomore and had an incredible game en route to being named tourney MVP after nobody even had him on their radar. AJ Bramah came in from a junior college so it was a big experience for him, as well as for our seniors to go out like that with a conference tourney championship.
What kind of seed do you think that you deserved? I never think about that. Most teams from our league are in the 1st 4 as a 16-seed but it does not even matter: I just hope the situation with the coronavirus is resolved so that nobody is placed at risk.
Any thoughts on the impact of the coronavirus on college basketball this month? I am not a medical person but it is heartbreaking for a lot of people. Not just the sports world: some people have lost their lives or are still affected by it. Hopefully there can be some resolution so we can move on with our lives, which I am sure we will do at some point.
