By Kevin Hess

It’s rare that a power-conference coach is willing to swallow his pride and bring his coaching acumen willingly to a mid-major team stuck at the bottom of the league standings. But Pat Kennedy recently pulled a major coup for the Towson basketball program with the hiring of former Nebraska head coach Danny Nee, the all-time winningest head coach in Cornhusker history with 254 wins in 14 seasons at Lincoln.

“I think it’s going to work out great,” Kennedy said. “Danny has a great coaching background, great coaching presence [and] I think our guys are going to respond very positively to him. He has a tremendous amount to offer.” 

Nee will serve as an assistant to Kennedy and is eager to get back on the bench after spending last season with Rutgers as director of player development, a role that did not allow him to game-plan with the team on a daily basis.

“I’ve known Pat a long, long time and it gives me an opportunity to get back on the floor,” Nee said. “I missed being able to teach and coach and that’s what the big attraction was. Also, geographically, it was an area that me and my wife wouldn’t mind living in. It was a fit in my mentality.”

Nee joins a revamped coaching staff that saw assistants Shaun Morris and Eric Skeeters leave the program, after which Kennedy hired Allen Edwards (who played for Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith at Kentucky, where he went to four NCAA tournaments) away from VCU and retained Jim Meil, who was recently promoted to associate head coach in this, his second stint at Towson.

With Nee and Kennedy pairing up on the sidelines, the hope is to build off of last year’s deep CAA Tournament run and turn the fortunes of the program around, something that is possible with what Nee says is a “solid nucleus” of players and the 884 career victories the two have amassed in their nearly 60 years of heading coaching experience.
“I’m going to try and help them win. That’s the challenge,” Nee said. “We’re excited about the potential of the team. I’m going to be a blender, I’m going to try and help the coaches, I’m going to try and help the players and try and get something positive done.”

Kennedy is one of just five active coaches with 29 consecutive seasons as a Division I head coach and will be entering his sixth season at Towson. And though Kennedy is still searching for his first winning season at the school, he has placed 15 players into the NBA ranks and has made postseason play in 13 seasons, including eight NCAA appearances.

Factor in last season’s CAA Tournament run that saw the 11th seeded Tigers surprisingly advance to the semifinals and the patented high level of talent that Kennedy has been able to woo to the school (including incoming freshman forward Isaiah Philmore, a Rivals.com three-star recruit) and things may finally be looking up for the Tigers.

“I thought our play in the CAA Tournament was clearly a breakthrough," Kennedy said. "We have such quality experience returning and now we’ve really evolved and enhanced our coaching staff.”

Posted Aug. 14, 2009