From top of the class to building high hopes from the bottom
John Pelphrey's resume was impeccable. Mr. Basketball in Kentucky. All-SEC forward at Kentucky, which retired his jersey. Then an assistant to Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State and to Billy Donovan at Florida.
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| Chey Christie is averaging 9.3 ppg and scored 12 in the Jaguars upset of then ranked Houston. (AP) |
And then he was hired at South Alabama.
Pelphrey didn't know much about basketball at the South Alabama level.
"It's totally different," he says. "Make no mistake about it."
It was a struggle. Pelphrey's first team went 14-14, but the foundation was poor -- South Alabama had almost no good, young talent when he arrived -- and 12-16 and 10-18 seasons followed in 2003-04 and '04-05.
But Pelphrey learned as he went, acquiring knowledge he never needed at Kentucky or Florida. He learned how to find junior college players with the game and academic wherewithal to compete in the Sun Belt Conference, like scoring leader Mario Jointer. He learned how to keep his ear to the ground for Division I transfers, like starting guard Chey Christie of Clemson. He learned how to look past all those high school superstars who wouldn't play for South Alabama to find recruits who would, like forward Richard Law, a four-year starter on pace to score 1,000 career points.
And now South Alabama is winning again. The Jaguars are 8-2, including a victory against then-No. 25 Houston. Next year they'll get two more Division I transfers eligible: Richmond guard Daon Merritt and Oregon State forward Kenny Hooks.
"We've been putting in lot of hard work for three years, and this is the most talent we've had," Pelphrey says. "As we continue to grow, we're going to even have more guys."
South Alabama isn't bulletproof. After a seven-game winning streak, the Jaguars lost last week to 1-8 Alabama State. But that's why this job was available in March 2002. South Alabama isn't easy. It'll probably never be easy.
Pelphrey isn't the first "name" coach to follow this path. With few exceptions -- Tommy Amaker and Quin Snyder come to mind -- hotshot college players don't start coaching with a hotshot job. For every Amaker-to-Seton Hall or Snyder-to-Missouri, there are a dozen guys like Pelphrey getting started at places like South Alabama.
Some struggle. After playing and assisting at Duke, where he was surrounded by McDonald's All-Americans, David Henderson has struggled in six years at Delaware. Another former Kentucky legend, Kyle Macy, is 103-128 in nine years at Morehead State. Ex-Georgetown guard Horace Broadnax was 42-88 at Bethune-Cookman before resigning during his fifth season.
For the coaches who make the adjustment, the payoff is huge. Another ex-Wildcat, Travis Ford, won at NAIA Campbellsville and Eastern Kentucky, and now is at UMass. Ex-North Carolina star Jeff Lebo won at Tennessee Tech and Chattanooga, and currently is at Auburn. Steve Alford went from Indiana All-American to NBA veteran to Division III Manchester College, and then to Southwest Missouri State. Now he's at Iowa.
