{"id":26,"date":"2015-03-13T01:03:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T01:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrewcaplan.wordpress.com\/?p=26"},"modified":"2015-04-17T03:46:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T03:46:11","slug":"legendary-coach-believes-in-bulls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/2015\/03\/13\/legendary-coach-believes-in-bulls\/","title":{"rendered":"Legendary coach believes in Bulls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published in The Crow’s Nest\u00a0February\u00a02015<\/em><\/p>\n

The USF men\u2019s basketball program is heading in the right direction, or at least Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown thinks so.<\/p>\n

Brown is the only coach in basketball history to win a championship in the NCAA (University of Kansas, 1988) and in the NBA (Detroit Pistons, 2004).<\/p>\n

Following Southern Methodist University\u2019s 63-52 victory over the Bulls on Jan. 28, Brown had some words of encouragement for his opponents, who are on a seven-game losing streak.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne, I know how good this program is going to be,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAnd nothing against the coaching staff before, I have a lot of respect for those guys, but you know, Orlando (Antigua) is good people. He deserves this opportunity. This, to me, is a sleeping giant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe giant,\u201d however, has been asleep since the 2011-2012 season. That year, the Bulls went 22-14 and qualified for the NCAA tournament as the No. 12 seed. It was their last winning season to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s ample material here,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI think they can recruit on a national level because Orlando\u2019s done that before and he\u2019ll have a lot of people that will help him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antigua was an assistant head coach at the University of Kentucky before accepting the head coaching position with the Bulls. He studied under John Calipari at UK for six years, where the Wildcats had the No. 1 recruiting class four times and the No. 2 class two times, reaching the championship game twice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019ll get it done,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI really do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antigua is in the first year of his five-year contract with the Bulls. Adding nine new players to the roster, the program is building from the ground up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate Coach saying that,\u201d Antigua said. \u201cHe\u2019s obviously someone I look up to. He\u2019s a Hall of Fame coach, he\u2019s won at everywhere. Just to have an opportunity for our team to compete against his in a great conference is something that is exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The legendary coach went on explaining how the Bulls\u2019 entire coaching staff is admirable, not just the head coach.<\/p>\n

Joining Antigua from UK was former NBA player Rod Strickland, who had an administrative role on Calipari\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cRod\u2019s one of the smartest players I\u2019ve ever been around,\u201d Brown said. \u201cKids kind of gravitate toward Rod. I just hope he does well because he\u2019s paid his dues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown went on to explain how coaches, such as Antigua, can have the chips stacked against them the way recruiting is set up \u2014 the rich get richer \u2014 compared to the way the NBA is set up, where the worst teams can grab the top players.<\/p>\n

To see how this sleeping giants turns out is yet to be seen. With just nine games left on the schedule, the Bulls are 7-15 overall, 1-8 in conference play.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Photo Courtesy of SMU Athletics)<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published in The Crow’s Nest\u00a0February\u00a02015 The USF men\u2019s basketball program is heading in the right direction, or at least Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown thinks so. Brown is the only coach in basketball history to win a championship in the NCAA (University of Kansas, 1988) and in the NBA (Detroit Pistons, 2004). Following Southern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,13,15,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-26","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-larry-brown","8":"tag-orlando-antigua","9":"tag-smu","10":"tag-usf","11":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156,"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digifolio.me\/andrewcaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}