Tuesday, May 1, 2012

From the FreeP: Pelage, O’Brien go through unique coaching experience

By Craig Meyer/DFP Staff

When Jeff Pelage and Jake O’Brien arrived at Boston University almost four years ago, they were no different than any other players getting ready to start their college basketball careers.

There were the same aspirations – improving their respective games, growing as players and, hopefully, experiencing a championship and the bright lights of the NCAA Tournament. Maybe more than anything, they were there to play for a coach who convinced them to come play for him rather than anyone else in the country.

But now, three and a half years, 132 games and countless hours of practice later, the pair can no longer say their careers have been average. Indeed, among thousands of Division I college basketball players, they are unique, as BU’s two-man 2008 recruiting class has had the bizarre if not downright dubious distinction of having played for three different coaches in their four-year college careers.

“It was just tough, it was just tough,” Pelage, a senior center, said.

While O’Brien and Pelage’s experience with coaching turnover has been far from typical, coaching changes aren’t all that strange. In fact, in the world of modern college basketball, they’re something of a necessary evil.

Read more at dailyfreepress.com.

No comments: