Jeff Neiburg (@Jeff_Neiburg)
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NEW YORK–Steve Wojciechowski has been in grooming for this moment for 15 years, ever since his playing career ended at Duke and his former coach, Mike Krzyzewski, brought him on as an assistant in 1999.
While many coaches go to small programs for their first head coaching positions, that isn’t the case with Kryzewski’s last two assistants to leave Durham, N.C.. Chris Collins took over at Northwestern – a Big Ten school – last season and now Wojciechowski, who was hired by Marquette in April, gets his chance to lead a Big East school.
No, the Big East isn’t in a “power conference” anymore as the landscape of college athletics consistently changes. But much of the talk at Wednesday’s Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden revolved around forgetting the past, when the Big East was the power conference in terms of basketball, and focusing on the now and the future.
The conference welcomed in three new schools in 2013-14 after eight schools departed from the then-15-school basketball conference following the 2012-13 season.
Steve Wojciechowski was hired in April to take over at Marquette after 15 years as a Duke assistant. (Photo: Gary Porter/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
There’s no doubt a lot has changed in that short time. The 15-team conference sent eight teams to the 2013 NCAA Tournament. Louisville, the 2013 national champion, bolted for the American conference last year before joining the Atlantic Coast Conference this season.
The 2014 NCAA Tournament featured just four Big East teams and none advanced past the round of 32, though former Big East fixture UConn took the title.
“We certainly don’t want to discount the tradition of the Big East, [but] this is a new era,” Wojciechowski said. “And in that new era, there are a lot of things, that I think, play into our favor. One of them is that we are a basketball conference. We are committed to college basketball. And in the landscape of college sports, college basketball is very important.”
If the conference is looking to take a step in a new direction, or to keep its profile as a basketball power in line, Wojciechowski is going to be in the forefront of that “new era” he mentioned.
The way in which Wojciechowski, 38, took over at Marquette was sort of peculiar. Following a 139-69 record and five NCAA appearances in six seasons as coach, Buzz Williams left Milwaukee for the ACC and Virginia Tech.
Maybe he, too, thinks the Big East is on its way down and saw a greater chance in the ACC – a “Power Five” conference.
But Wojciechowski, who still regularly talks with ‘Coach K,’ has been welcomed to Wisconsin with open arms.
“It’s a big city with a small town feel,” Wojciechowski said. “We’re a small school, under 10,000 [students]. But there’s 16-17,000 people that come to our games. It’s really the city’s team. They’re very passionate and again it’s nice to be in the driver’s seat.”
“Even really good basketball programs, at their schools, are in the passenger’s seat because football is more important. It’s the priority [at Marquette]. That’s not the case at some really good programs. They sit shotgun.”
‘Wojo’ as he’s become affectionately known throughout the basketball program, wanted to make sure his players didn’t feel like they were sitting shotgun after Williams’ abrupt departure.
“I haven’t even tried to rehash the past,” Wojciechowski said. “Everybody got a clean slate when I came in. My primary job when I got the job was to reach out to the current players because they were going through a difficult transition and uncertainty. My job was to try to develop relationships with them so they could see who I am, they could hear my vision for the program, and then decide if they want to be a part of it.”
“I think the guys would tell you that we have a really good relationship, that I’m able to demand their best and I’m able to tell the truth, but it’s done in a way where they feel like I’m still on their side.”
The slate is clean, as Wojo said. And the Golden Eagles will enter 2014-15 as an underdog, having been picked to finish seventh in the conference.
What’s new to Wojciechowski is also new to his players. For senior transfer Matt Carlino, it was going to be new whether it was with Williams or Wojciechowski. Carlino, an Arizona-native, originally went to play at UCLA but transferred to BYU and has shined there for the last three seasons.
“Everything is new to me, but everything is new to everyone with a first year head coach,” Carlino said. “Defensively we’re better, we’ve really harped on that a lot. Our offense needs to catch up to our defense at this point in the season, which I think is a good thing. It’s different than what I’ve been used to, usually the defense has to catch up to the offense.”
It wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist or basketball analyst to tell you that Wojciechowski was going to make sure that defense was his team’s strong suit. He was once the originator of the ever-hated, or locally-loved Duke basketball floor slapping on defense.
“Hopefully I’ll bring the defense,” Wojciechowski said. “It’s up to my guys whether they’ll slap the floor or not.”
