By Justin Feil, Special Writer
With Brian Earl heading to coach the Cornell University men’s basketball team, Princeton loses another good assistant but the program’s coaching tree sprouts another branch.
Earl, a 1999 Princeton graduate who was an assistant coach for the past nine years with the Tigers, was named the new head coach at Cornell on Monday and officially introduced on Thursday.
“Princeton is a big part of my history,” Earl said. “It’s tough, but I think I’ve made the right choices. That has been to stay at Princeton and it’s gotten me to this place. I think I’m ready and I’m excited about running my own program.”
Earl takes over for Bill Courtney, who coached the Big Red the last six years after taking over a team that advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in the NCAA tournament in 2010.
“I think it’s always helpful to be able to point to success,” Earl said. “It had been a long time prior to 2010 when anyone had made it as far as they had. It’s always nice to say this is possible, we can do this. It’s a pretty recent history of being in a place where the Ivy League doesn’t always go. We’re going to work toward that. It’s not a bullseye on our back, but it’s something to work towards. When you’re asking a little more of your players, you can say it’s been done so what’s the issue, let’s go get it together.”
Earl knows a lot about success, as a player at Princeton and then as an assistant. He played for two unbeaten conference teams in 1997 and 1998, and graduated as the all-time leading 3-point shooter in Ivy history (that mark was snapped by a Cornell’s Ryan Wittman in 1999) after being named the 1999 Ivy League Player of the Year.
Earl played overseas for three years then used his economics degree in the business world before Sydney Johnson hired him as an inexperienced assistant coach in 2007-08 and the Tigers went 6-23. Each of the next three years, the Tigers improved and reached the NCAA tournament in 2010-11 when they went 25-7 and lost to Kentucky in a tight game in the first round of the Big Dance. It was one of five 20-win seasons during Earl’s time as an assistant coach.
“From the outside looking in, I’d say I’m proud of where it started,” Earl said. “When I first got there nine years ago, we were 6-23, I think the worst team in the history of the league, and we built it to the NCAA tournament to play Kentucky and we sustained it. That’s really something that everyone can understand now.”
Earl coached for Johnson for four years and Mitch Henderson the last five years. They have helped influence him as a coach.
“I have two guys I played with and a great coaching staff that I played under,” Earl said. “Sydney and Mitch are very different. Syd is very to himself and very logical in the steps. Mitch is the same, but a little more animated and passionate. You try to take whatever you can from both of them. And all the coaches I played for, Coach (Bill) Carmody and (John) Thompson and (Joe) Scott and (Howard) Levy. And back to (Earl’s Shawnee High School coach) Joe Kessler. Everyone makes such a big deal about the Princeton lineage, but we had really good high school teams too. You learn from him and those guys as well. Malik (Allen, a Shawnee graduate) is now with the Pistons. You try to pick up as much as you can, and Princeton’s obviously a big part of it.”
How big a part of it, and how similarly the Big Red will look to a Princeton team remains to be seen. Even Earl isn’t quite sure how his new team will play.
“I’m going to try to figure out what’s there now,” he said. “If you said we’re running the Princeton stuff the way we did traditionally when I played in it, that would be almost the complete opposite of what’s happening. We led the league in scoring this year. When people say, you running the Princeton offense, you know you come from the Princeton lineage and have all that knowledge, but I think it looks a lot different from the offense I played in 15, 17 or 20 years ago. What we did this year — the concepts are the same with you’re trying to get the easiest shot you can — but we led the Ivy League in scoring.
“I’m going to turn around and look at the players we have at Cornell and figure out their strengths and take what I know from Princeton and take what I know from Shawnee and all the different influences and work towards whatever is best for the guys that are there now. I don’t think you have to do anything that doesn’t help you win. There are a hundred ways you can go and things you can do and that’s what I’ll look to do.”
Princeton was 22-7 this season and finished second in Ivy play to Yale. Before this season Earl was promoted to associate head coach, and now he leaves his alma mater for the chance to run his own program.
“I’m happy,” Earl said. “You realize what a tough business it is. You apply for these jobs and there are hundreds of people that apply. There’s a lot of really good candidates. You want to think you’re the most qualified person, but there are a ton of people that you meet on the road, especially this time of year in April when you’re running into each other so much and you realize they applied too and they’re qualified too. It’s really eye-opening when you consider all the people that are qualified. It’s just a complete oversupply of qualified people.”
Earl brings with him a winning pedigree as a player and a coach. He will be stepping in to try to do the same for his new team after being assistants to Johnson and Henderson.
“I’ll find my way,” Earl said. “I’m somewhere on the scale between those two. I don’t think I’m an outward yeller, screamer. But when I have to get my point across, I do. A lot of it is find your way. My brother just became a head coach within the last year and you don’t know until you call the timeout, and I’ve run practices for us, but until you run the program you don’t know. It’ll be interesting to figure my way out.”
He will be the first Princeton graduate to coach in-league against the Tigers since Craig Robinson led Brown in 2008.
“It’ll be interesting coming back here,” Earl said. “I think by the time you see me I’ll be completely comfortable and all in with the Big Red. I had some great times and we did some great things, but my future is in Ithaca and I’m all on board with the Big Red. It’s all about relationships. Pretty soon the relationships are going to be about Cornell guys and bringing in great guys and working with the guys they have there now.”
It’s the relationships that make leaving Princeton harder for Earl, but he understands that it comes with the territory.
“The biggest thing I’ll be leaving is my guys at Princeton, the players,” Early said. “I just got a text from (Colgate assistant and former Penn player) Michael Jordan saying, wish you all the best except against Penn. We did not like each other for at least four years that we played against each other and more than that. Now we’re very good friends. You realize it’s about the relationships. I count him and (Colgate head coach and former Penn player) Matt Langel and all these guys I was mortal enemies with as guys you’re more like them than anyone else.
“The players and relationships I’ll have with the players at Cornell, I know they’ll be as strong as the ones I have at Princeton. But those are the things you point to rather than the ‘P’ or the ‘C.’ It’s the guys I’ve known for six years from recruiting them that you have to say good-bye, I’ll see you twice a year and I’m rooting against you in those games.”
Cornell was tied for last in 2015-16, but they do have a budding star in freshman Matt Morgan, who averaged 18.9 points per game in his first season. Earl is plenty familiar with the league and has a jump start on many candidates in knowing the Big Red.
“We played them two times this year, but I handled all the scouts this year,” Earl said. “I probably watched 14 games with these guys and I think I have a sense, but I think it’s topical. They were forced to do certain things so it’s not what they always do. I think as much as you can get a sense from video and playing against them, I have a pretty good sense. But until you get in there and get to know personalities, I don’t think you can know for sure. That’s what the next couple months before summer break will be about.”
Earl is working toward filling out his staff at Cornell. He isn’t rushing into any decisions, but understands his assistants will be crucial.
“I have an idea of some of the ways I want to go, and if it doesn’t break the way I want, some back-up plans,” Earl said. “I’m taking my time with that, but it’s a really important decision and people advising me have said to be really smart with it.”
Earl headed up to Cornell on Wednesday to start acclimating to his new environment, to address the team and to start building his new program.
“Cornell, it’s a really interesting and unique place, even in the league,” Earl said. “The size and scope of what can happen there, it’s really something I didn’t realize because (when you play or coach against them) you get off the bus, you play, you get on the bus, and you don’t see campus. As someone who took weekend visits to Penn State when Dan was up there and loved it, the atmosphere is really unique and it’s something recruits and a diverse set of student-athletes can really appreciate. I did not know that fully until I went up and visited.”
Brian Earl will be looking to create the same success he’s been a part of at Princeton, and it starts with the people he has working with and playing for him.
“The relationships, it’s amazing when you look back at all these guys I’ll have a strong bond with,” Earl said. “And when you get into it, that’s what you realize it’s about. I’m looking to build that.”
