Six Degrees of Separation from Pete Carril

Click here to see what I mean.

Actually, it's really only one degree of separation; it's an article about former Princeton head coach Pete Carril's hoop children, former players or assistants who have become head coaches.

It's an impressive list in its own right.

You're read here before about Joe Scott at Princeton, John Thompson III at Georgetown, Bill Carmody at Northwestern and Chris Mooney at Air Force. Not to mention former Carril player Steve Mills (who is an executive VP at Madison Square Garden Corporation and who once worked for the NBA), former Carril player Craig Robinson (a Carmody assistant at Northwestern) and former Carmody player Mitch Henderson (also an assistant at Northwestern). As well as former Carril players Mike Brennan and Howie Levy, assistants under Scott at Princeton and former Carril player Sydney Johnson, an assistant under Thompson at Georgetown. Robinson and Johnson were first-team all-Ivy selections and Ivy players of the year (Robinson got the award twice).

That's a pretty stellar cast from a school that doesn't give basketball scholarships and with a multi-purpose gym that has all of the intimacy of an airplane hangar (which really isn't fair, given that Cornell's gym, I believe, actually once was an airplane hangar).

You would expect that type of family tree from a John Wooden, Dean Smith, Coach K or Bob Knight. Pete Carril's name wouldn't necessarily have readily come to mind, but, then again, he's a Hall of Famer too.

With very good reason.