clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Steve Masiello To Coach USF Basketball

Get ready... the Bulls are gonna run!!

According to multiple reports, Steve Masiello has accepted men's basketball head coaching position at USF. No confirmation from USF is available right now, but here's how we're piecing it together:

And then this was sort of the coup de grace:

As to the kind of coach Masiello is on and off the floor, well here's some required reading and viewing:

This Grantland story from yesterday goes behind the scenes with Masiello and the Jaspers as they get ready to take on Louisville in the NCAA's. It is in-depth, emotional, wonderful, and gives some great insight into how Masiello ran his program at Manhattan. You'll be ready to run through a wall for your new coach by the end. Some great quotes:

While his team stretches, Masiello approaches me on the sideline and explains how he built this program. It is, he stresses again, almost a carbon copy of Louisville. Same press, same offensive sets, same conditioning workouts, same everything. But one difference, he says, is that Manhattan has taken on the identity of the city it calls home.

Typically, Manhattan's advantage comes from taking teams by surprise. The Jaspers press full-court for 40 minutes. They run. They rotate 10 players. They're not afraid to bleed, and they're even less afraid to foul. They're a mid-major version of Louisville. "Everything we do, they do," Masiello told reporters just moments ago.

Also if you didn't see it before in our other post, check out this trailer from a proposed documentary about Masiello and Manhattan:

As to the reaction we've seen to Masiello, here's a sampling:

Everyone we've talked to seems to love this guy, and he might be the perfect person to make USF Basketball relevant to Tampa once again. At worst the Bulls will at least be interesting for an extended period, and we haven't been able to say that for a long time. That sounds like a home run to us, and we'll be at the press conference.

So dear readers... how's this play with you? What do you think of the new hire??