Ready to stumble? Nope -- Xavier's Mack up to task
The hire began with a question mark and a story.
Perhaps a column on Xavier coach Chris Mack and the fact he has led the Musketeers to yet another Sweet 16 appearance in his first season shouldn't begin with a less-than-flattering anecdote, retelling a story that occurred in just a few inconsequential seconds more than a year ago. But the story inspired the question, so it must begin that way.
More than 99 percent of the time in his career, Mack would tell you, he's acted in a way that would make the school he's representing proud. He's competitive, but in the right way. He's not obnoxious about it. This is how he sees it.
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| Is Chris Mack a passionate, competitive coach? You might say that. (AP) |
The scene set up this way: Pitt's Levance Fields had just hit the game-winning 3-pointer to beat the Musketeers in last year's Sweet 16. At the end of the contest, as the CBS camera crews cut to the handshake lane, they spotted Mack -- then an assistant coach under Sean Miller -- engaging in some unfriendly postgame banter with Fields.
It was a few seconds of TV that quickly were forgotten by most. But I thought it also showcased a potential hazard, and when Xavier athletic director Mike Bobinski hired Mack two months later to replace Miller, the first question that popped to mind was this:
Was Mack really ready for a job like this?
More than a year later, I could feel Mack cringing on the phone when I asked him about those few inglorious seconds.
"We're all competitive whether we have suits or uniforms on," Mack said this week before flying to Salt Lake City with his Xavier (26-8) squad to prepare for Thursday's Sweet 16 showdown with Kansas State (28-7). "Sometimes coaches lose their cool and will do things that maybe they regret. But I've handled myself as well as could be expected. I'm not going to change the person that I am. It's who I am. It's made me a competitor my whole life."
This, one cannot argue. It goes back to Mack's college days when he transferred from Evansville to Xavier before his junior season and was named a team captain for the 1991-92 season. That's the regard in which his teammates held him.
Eight seconds into the team's first exhibition game that year, Mack tore the ACL in his left knee, and the next offseason, while playing in a summer league, he tore the ACL in his right knee. Still, Mack -- and we know this today -- was driven to succeed. He rehabbed both knees and took the court in January 1993 to a standing ovation. That's the regard in which his fans held him.
He played for coach Pete Gillen, he worked for former Xavier coach Skip Prosser at Wake Forest, and he returned to his native Cincinnati six years ago to become Sean Miller's No. 1 assistant. Mack took all of the wisdom he received from that coaching trio, and he used it to carve his own Xavier identity, becoming the first rookie coach in program history to make the Sweet 16 and tying Thad Matta for most wins in a coach's first season.
When Miller -- who brought the team to an Elite Eight and two Sweet 16 appearances -- left for Arizona, he said his new program could win national titles. Mack is showing the country that he could win one at Xavier as well.
The emergence of Indiana transfer Jordan Crawford -- who has played like a bona fide superhero moonlighting as a shooting guard -- and the development of sophomore point guard Terrell Holloway certainly has helped steady Mack's ship. But Mack has preached much the same message Miller did, even using some of the same style and diction in media interviews, and made sure defense and rebounding stayed a top priority.
Even after losing forward Derrick Brown to the NBA and watching most of Miller's staff flock to the dry heat of Tucson, Mack exceeded expectations.
"When you've got those kinds of guards, you have some freedom," said Dayton coach Brian Gregory, whose squad went 1-2 against Xavier this year. "Now, they're still really good defensively and they're really good on the glass. Their core stuff hasn't changed that much. But Chris has worked for Skip Prosser and Sean Miller. He was ready for the job."
Still, some of us questioned whether Mack truly was prepared to lead this journey. Some of us questioned why Xavier hadn't made a public run at a higher-profile coach instead of one whose only previous head-coaching experience was leading the Cougars of Mount Notre Dame, an all-girls high school in Cincinnati.
Frankly, the postgame chat with Fields contributed to that sense of unease.
And still, Mack continues to have fun with some of the words that come out of his mouth. Last week, he sparred with a Minneapolis sports columnist who took a few unwarranted shots at the Musketeers, and a few weeks earlier he appeared to tweak rival University of Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin on his Twitter feed.
But when another Levance Fields scenario bubbled to the surface this season -- in the Cincinnati game, no less -- Mack showed his maturity. After Bearcats freshman Lance Stephenson hit a clutch shot, Stephenson made sure Mack knew who had done the damage.
After the game, a double-overtime victory for Xavier, a reporter asked Mack what he thought about Stephenson.
Said a stone-faced Mack, whose mouth barely moved, "He's a very good player."
In doing so, he provided the answer to the original query I had when Bobinski hired him. Was Mack really ready for a job like this?
Today, there's no question at all.
