April 8, 2010
Head Coach Mitch Buonaguro
I want to thank everyone for coming. First off, I want to thank Fr. Kevin Mullen, who from day one understood my passion for the college. John D'Argenio, who handled the search with tremendous class. He phoned me almost daily, let me know what was going on. That relieved a lot of my anxiety. When I went to the Final Four, John called me there every day. I knew exactly what was going on with the search and always had a good feeling I would be selected. The board of trustees, I know several of them. I know Ken Raymond is sitting here ... Bob Curley has been tremendous. I know several others, and they've been great friends.
Margaret McCaffery, sitting here in the front. Obviously Fran is out in Iowa. I spoke to him yesterday. I already miss him. We had a great friendship. I worked for Fran for seven years, and it's a big reason I have a job here. He did a lot to help my career, and I did a lot to help Fran. I think we were a good match. We chased perfection. Along the way, we found excellence. We established an excellent program. One thing I always admired about Fran is he reached for the stars. He never settled for mediocrity. I think I learned that from him. When you chase perfection, and I really believe this, when you reach for the stars, excellence comes with that. It takes a lot of work. And that's how I'm going to coach. That's what's going to happen for however long I'm going to be here. I'm going to chase perfection. Along the way we're going to have an excellent program.
These are great kids. They represent the college in a first-class manner. They're a big reason I'm standing here. I think they supported me, they expressed strongly that they wanted me to be the coach. When that happens, there's no better endorsement. The guys sitting here, Ryan [Rossiter], Steve [Priestley] and Clarence [Jackson], the seniors, I met with them yesterday, they're the ones that have really resurrected this program. It's the coaches that facilitate, but it's the players that play. They've done it on the court and in the classroom.
My wife Suzin, this has been a journey. I'm a lifer, as they say. I've coached now 35 years. My wife Suzin has been with me the last 18 years. A lot of ups and downs. Coaching is not easy. The moves. The long nights. The travel. The recruiting. It doesn't happen for a coach unless you have a lot of support at home. She's been great. She's looking forward to getting involved with more people in the community. We have a place up in Ballston Lake that we've really settled in on.
My feelings about the opportunity are several. One, I'm humbled. I understand how important this program is to a lot of people, to the administration, the community here at Siena, to a lot of people. I understand that this is important to a lot of people. One thing I guarantee is that I'll represent the college and the program in a first class manner. Certainly, we will win. That's paramount. We've established a pattern of excellence. But we want to do it in a first-class manner.
I think the one thing that came across is I have a passion for Siena. I think this school is a great place to be...that's what makes a university. It's not buildings, its people. And I believe that one of the reasons I fit here is because the people here at Siena and I have gotten along well and there's a certain amount of respect. So I want to thank everyone at Siena, really they've been a great help in my five years.
We've had a history of excellence we'd like to keep it there. Questions about where we can go from here well we'd like to go to the next level. What does that mean? It means every year being one of the top mid-major programs in the country. It's going to take recruitment, it's going to take scheduling, it's going to take commitment from the players, it's going to take a lot of things. It's going to take my energy, a tremendous amount of energy, but I think that we've set the bar now high. We have to keep it there. And in my discussions with Father and John I really believe a big part of that is scheduling. We have to continue to schedule really good teams. We want to be the dominant team in the MAAC. That's a given. Which we've been, we're 42-3 in our last 45 MAAC games. So we've obviously been the dominant team. We want to stay there. And the other thing is we have to get really good recruits. Obviously we have some great players sitting in this room. So that's my vision. You know scheduling, being the dominant team in the MAAC, recruiting quality kids who can play up tempo.
You know I learned a lot from Fran about running an offense. I said this to everyone that interviewed me, Fran was a tremendous basketball coach and I learned a lot from him in seven years. And what I learned is that there's a certain style of play that the players like and the fans like. And I believe in that totally. We have to be up-tempo, we have pressure and that's how we're going to recruit those kind of players. We have work to be done. We have two really good recruits that we have to secure. It's paramount that I get to see those people because they're both excellent players. They're both people that would be really good players here so my first order of business is that I have to get on the phone. We have to see them and make sure they're coming next year. Both guys can be very good student-athletes here at Siena. With those scholarships filled we have one scholarship left. We're actively recruiting for that scholarship. We have a long list. Right now we're looking at getting a point guard which would be a priority and we have a pretty good bunch of kids that we're working on.
I've discussed this with John about the type of staff I want. Obviously one of the assistants I would want to be a kind of person like myself that I can throw some ideas off of in terms of Xs and Os. Obviously I want a diverse staff. The one thing I thought that helped Fran was that we had diversity on our staff. We worked well together. There was a strength maybe that I had, there was a strength that Andrew Francis had, Adam's got strengths, Dave the younger coach has strengths. We meshed well. I think Fran obviously put a good team on the floor. We've got to work with the players, I enjoy that and I'm definitely going to get working on that. We've been away from each other for about two weeks so I'll get going on that next week.
We've got to monitor our players academically. It's very important. Its been hard. Adam and I have been continuing to do that to make sure everything goes well and they are ready for their finals. I'm really excited to get going. We have a lot of work after this press conference is over and I'm going to get on the phone and start going to work. There's a lot of work to be done in order to continue the excellence. Again I'm excited about the opportunity. This is my dream job. I said this yesterday. I mean at this point in my life where Suzin and I are this is a tremendous opportunity for me and one that I'm going to give a tremendous amount of effort to keep at the level that we're at and hopefully go to the next level.
Thank you.
Questions from the Media
Q: Mitch did you ever see another head coaching opportunity for you looking back five years, seven years, did you ever think this opportunity would arise again?
A: Yes because I've said this, everyone that I've worked for Fran, Rollie, I've really only worked with two people. I had one other job at Texas A&M with coach Tony Barone. At those positions they all made me associate head coaches, so I really felt if there was an opportunity I would have a really good chance because I consider myself a head coach. I don't consider myself an assistant. Fran treated me that way. One of the greatest things about Fran was that he would give me a lot of responsibility. He would let me put a game plan in. He trusted me with the team. When he was away he had no problem having me coach the team. So I've been in positions where as an assistant I've been in for the head coach.
Q: Mitch what do you think the biggest difference is between being a head coach and an assistant coach? How do you make that transition?
A: I've got to delegate more. I'm a person that likes to do my own work. To be honest with you I'm one of those people that will do a job and I'll do it until I'm here until 2 or 3 in the morning. I can't do that anymore. I've got to delegate a lot of responsibility. That's why I have to hire good people. I was very meticulous about scouting, very meticulous about recruiting. I've got to hire some people that have to be like I was to be honest with you. Fran told me a lot of nights `go home', he was amazed at my work ethic. That's who I've got to find in people that are going to work under me, a tremendous work ethic.
Q: Do you have a timetable in place for putting a staff together?
A: I've got a lot of qualified people it's unbelievable. I have never seen, never taken this many calls, and I've got a lot of qualified people. I'm not going to mention any names but you'd be amazed at who's called me about the position. And that's because I think the program has added stature now. There's more stature to the program because you know people are interested in coming here to coach. It's a great job.
Q: Can you comment Mitch on the status of the two recruits?
A: I'd say Trenity Burdine is all set. I think Melsahn we're going to have to meet with him and re-recruit him a little bit but I feel good about him also. I've been in contact with both of them and they are important to keep in the program. They are both very good players. And I have to try and keep them. They would be a big part of the program. I can't comment on the other player we have another commitment from, but he is a very good player. I can't comment on it but I think he's pretty good about coming.
Q: Mitch how much pressure are you going to put on yourself with all the expectation of what Fran did here?
A: I actually think next year there will be a little less expectation. One of the things I've said was this year was fine, we were expected to win almost every game. It's not going to be that way next year. We're going to be good and I expect us to contend for a MAAC championship, but there might be some bumps in the non-conference schedule next year. It's going to be a tough schedule but you know Fran's teams we always kind of struggled early. That was the great thing about Fran, he was able to get the team ready when he had to get it ready. Our teams are always best at the end of the year. That's your goal as a coach. Butler was 8-4 this year in the non-conference and everybody was saying this and that and then they went on to win 25 games. That's why you play a difficult non-conference schedule. You play good teams then you're ready to be good at the end of the year, that's the key in my opinion. I'm going to deflect as much pressure as I can from the players. We'll go about every game and do our best. We're not going to be picked as high anyways nationally or in the league. We're going to be picked 2nd or 3rd in the league and I'm excited about being picked. Where we are the last three years have been tough.
