Thursday, May 22, 2008

Brilliant Choice for Bucknell Men's Basketball

Bucknell hired two-time DIII coach of the year Dave Paulsen (formerly the head coach at his alma mater, Williams College) to replace Pat Flannery. You can read about the hiring here.

Paulsen is a great, creative choice for Bucknell. He withdrew from consideration for the Dartmouth job a few years ago when the Big Green hired Terry Dunn (my guess is that Paulsen just didn't feel he could win in the Ivies at Dartmouth -- and Dunn's tenure is proving him right). He should have been (and perhaps was) a candidate at Brown to replace Craig Robinson, and I also thought that Penn and or Princeton should have considered him for their vacancies when Fran Dunphy moved to Temple and Joe Scott went to Denver.

It's easy to say why: the just is a proven winner, period, and success begets success. Paulsen knows how to coach smart kids, and with some scholarships available at Lewisberg, he should make the transition to the Patriot League rather easily.

I can't say enough about what a great choice this appears to be. Congratulations, Bucknell, on your decision.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dave Paulsen is, simply put, a great coach. He is the complete package- work ethic, smart, current, innovative, ethical, I could go on and on. As someone who has been involved in DIII basketball for almost 25 years, I always thought it was a matter of time before he eventually made the move to DI. His teams always do so many things extremely well.
Congrats, Bucknell. You are in for a treat- buy your tickets now.