Loyola Seems to Fit Patsos to a 'T'

By John Feinstein
Sunday, February 11, 2007

BALTIMORE

Jimmy Patsos knows -- really knows-- he has to stop getting technical fouls. "I'm getting better," he said with a smile while sitting in Sabatino's, his favorite spot in Little Italy. "I'm not cursing this year. I got one at Michigan State because I asked one of the officials if he had worked the NCAA tournament last year. He said he hadn't, and I said, 'Well, that's because of calls like the one you just made.' He teed me up. But he knew it was funny."

It is year three in the Education of Jimmy at Loyola of Maryland. After 13 seasons at Maryland, where he helped Gary Williams build a program that won the national championship in 2002, he struck out on his own in the spring of 2004. The Greyhounds were 6-22 in year one and 15-13 in year two. They are 14-10 this season, but more importantly 10-4 in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference play and tied for first place entering Sunday afternoon's game at home against Fairfield.

"We're better," Patsos said. "We've got a ways to go, but we've come a long way."

The same can be said for Patsos, who recently turned 40. He's still single, but in a serious relationship -- "she's a Tar Heel," he said, almost whispering as if Williams and all the Maryland faithful might hear him -- all the while trying to learn the ropes as a head coach at a school that won one game the year before he arrived and has made one NCAA tournament appearance (1994) in 95 seasons of basketball.

"We've got one banner in our gym," Patsos said. "The goal this year is to change that."

Patsos knows Loyola is in a one-bid conference as far as the NCAA tournament is concerned. That means the conference tournament, played the first weekend in March in Bridgeport, Conn., will decide who goes and who doesn't go, regardless of the regular season standings. But he's also keenly aware of the National Invitation Tournament rule that grants an automatic bid to any regular season conference champion left out of the NCAA tournament. While those who work for, play for and root for his old employer might believe that NIT is a four-letter word, Patsos would be delighted to see Loyola in any postseason event.

"I think I'm coaching better now than when I got here because I've got more time to coach," he said. "I don't have to promote anymore. We've sold out all the courtside seats. We've sold a lot of corporate sponsorships. Our students are showing up and giving us a big home-court advantage. Now we just have to play and get better. That makes the job simpler and, I think, makes me better at the job."

Patsos played his college ball at Catholic under the late Jack Bruen. He had the chance to get to know Red Auerbach -- a thrill because he grew up in Boston -- the last few years. He worked for Williams and against Duke's Mike Krzyzewski for all those years at Maryland. He has tried to steal a little bit of each of those men in piecing together his own approach to running a program.

"I've still got some D-3 in me," he said. "When we travel, I don't want the kids to just see a gym and a hotel. When we played Northwestern this year, I arranged for us to go to the Chicago Board of Trade and be down in the pit. When we played Fairfield, we stayed in New York and went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and to the Dakota." He paused. "Yes, two of the kids did ask me who John Lennon was.

"I've tried to create a little bit of Duke here. We're a small school, lot of smart kids. I want the players connected to the students. I want the students behind the bench. I want to be involved with them, for them to know me.

"I get technical fouls because Red told me it was okay to get technicals -- as long as they don't cost your team a game. I never get one the last 10 minutes. I've never been thrown out. But when you're starting with a program that won one game, you have to let them know that you're here, that your team deserves some respect.

"Of course, that's Gary. A lot of me will always be Gary. Everything we do on offense and defense is Gary. A lot of my bench demeanor is Gary. A lot of my intensity is Gary."

So too, is some of his paranoia. Just as Williams often ranted about Maryland being in "Siberia" as the northernmost school in the ACC until the arrival of Boston College, Patsos can get on a roll about Loyola being the MAAC's southernmost outpost.

"The league office is in" New Jersey, he said. "Most of the refs are Northern guys. I got teed up against Siena because I said to one of the refs: 'Hey, you're from Albany, right? What a coincidence, Siena's right outside Albany.' "

But most of what he learned from Williams, he has applied to rebuilding at Loyola: recruit hard, coach hard, take nothing for granted and never accept losing.

"We talk at least once a week," Patsos said. "He's been like a father figure to me for a while, but a teacher, too. Now there are times when he's down and I try to pick him up. But a lot of the time it's the other way around. When we blew a 10-point lead Saturday at Fairfield, he called me from the plane on the way back from Wake Forest and just said, 'You all right?'

"I still bleed Maryland red every day. Sunday, after we play Fairfield, the whole team is coming to my house to watch the Duke game. We'll have it TiVoed so we can watch the whole thing even though we'll be an hour late getting there. I wouldn't be where I am in coaching if not for Gary. I miss working for him, I really do."

Some coaches find it emotionally draining to be submerged in the intensity Williams regularly brings. Patsos thrived on it -- and still does. He has pieced together his team through transfers -- leading scorer Gerald Brown from Providence, starting forward Omari Isreal from Notre Dame and injured starting center Hassan Fofana from Maryland -- along with players such as freshman point guard Brett Harvey and second-leading scorer Marquis Sullivan, who were recruited out of high school.

"It's a different road, that's for sure," he said. "When I was at Maryland, there were times when we just swooped down on players late because of who we were and the league we were in. It's different here. Now my nest gets robbed sometimes.

"Last spring, we were recruiting a kid named Pierre Curtis. He really could have helped us. In April, he calls me and tells me he's going to James Madison. I say: 'James Madison? Why?' He says, 'Because they're in the CAA and their coaches told me they can do what George Mason just did.' Look, if I'm [Dukes Coach] Dean Keener, I would do the exact same thing. But losing a kid that way hurts."

He dug into an oyster. "It's all part of the learning process. I'm getting better. We're getting better. We're going to get there. I just hope it's sooner rather than later."

The Education of Jimmy continues. Stay tuned.