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O'Brien Resigns at ISU

votb

votb

Active member
O’Brien Resigns; Martin Named Interim Head Coach

POCATELLO, Idaho- Idaho State Director of Athletics Jeff Tingey has announced that men’s basketball coach Joe O’Brien is stepping down as head coach of the Idaho State men’s basketball team.

“I appreciate all that Joe has done for Idaho State Athletics over his six years as head coach,” Tingey said. “His team’s played hard on the court and continually took part in various community activities here in the Pocatello community. I wish him the best of luck in his future.”

Assistant coach Deane Martin will serve as the interim head coach for the remainder of the season.

“In coaching you need to know when it is time to walk way,” O’Brien said. “I know it is time. For a number of reasons in my life it is time. This basketball team has a chance and they have proven they can compete with people. A different voice will make a difference in this program. It is time for me to do something different.”

O’Brien has been head coach of the Bengals since 2006 and in his first three years he led the Bengals to the Big Sky Tournament and a fourth place finish in the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. For his career at Idaho State he finished with a 56-105 record and 33-46 in Big Sky play.

O'Brien carried with him a tremendous background to Idaho State. One of the junior college ranks' most successful coaches, O'Brien owned a career head junior college coaching mark of 313-117, a .728 winning percentage.

He earned his first collegiate head coaching job at Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois, where he led the Lynx to four straight 20-win seasons, including a 25-6 mark in 1993-94. While at Lincoln, O'Brien amassed a 100-53 record over his five seasons, before taking over at Southeastern Community College in 1996, where he led the BlackHawks to unprecedented success. During his eight seasons at SEICC, O'Brien had eight winning seasons, including four 20-win seasons, and three other 30-win seasons.

In 1999-2000, the BlackHawks went 32-4 in winning their first NJCAA national championship. The following two seasons saw the BlackHawks go 25-8 and 25-10 with a Region XI Championship. In 2002-03 and 2003-04, the BlackHawks won back-to-back national titles, going 37-1 in 02-03, and 32-4 in 03-04. In his eight seasons with SEICC, the BlackHawks went 213-64. With his third title, O'Brien joined Ronnie Arrow and Allen Bradfield as the only coaches with three national titles at that level. Overall, O'Brien is one of only 11 people to have three national titles either at the JC or the NCAA level. In 2008, he received the ultimate honor, as he was inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

O'Brien got his start in coaching at the collegiate level in 1982-83, when he spent the first of two seasons at Southeastern Louisiana University. He then served as an assistant coach at Central Missouri State for five years, helping CMS to three 20-win seasons and two NCAA Tournament appearances before moving on to Lincoln College. O'Brien spent the 2004-05 season as an assistant at Florida International, helping the Golden Panthers to go from 13-43 over the previous two seasons to a 13-17 mark, FIU's best record in the previous six seasons.

O'Brien has earned six national Coach of the Year honors, two each in 2000, 2003, and 2004, plus three District XI Coach of the Year honors. Joe has also spent time in the prep ranks as an assistant coach at Jonesboro-Hodge and Natchitoches High Schools in Louisiana, and as the head coach at Episcopal High School for one season, 1981-82.
 
This news is bittersweet to me for sure. I have grown to really like Joe O'Brien as a person and feel that he has done a lot of good things. His players have had no off the court problems and have been model citizens. With that said, the performance on the court has been lacking.

The huge benefit of this announcement is that it gives Tingey plenty of time to find the right replacement. The next coach will have at least 5 scholarships to give (more if any players leave) to rebuild the program. With 5 scholarships and a full spring recruiting season, we should be able to make improvements next year.
 
I'm going to miss Joe a lot. I've worked with a lot of coaches...and he's treated me as well, or better, than any of them!
 
Joe O'brien is a good guy.. I think he's right.. Some new blood and a new philosophy will be a good thing. Good luck to him and his family.. They're all great people.
 
I have not been a Joe O'Brien fan, but you have to give credit where credit is due. It takes a person of great stature to step aside when things aren't going well. I give Coach O'Brien all the credit in the world for putting the welfare of the program ahead of his own. I wish him all the best in any of his future endeavors.
 
I'm saddened by this, because I considered Joe as a friend first and coach second. Joe and Amy are both gracious individuals who deserve the best. I will never forget them.
 
I am going to miss Joe O'Brien. For some reason, I found him really interesting to listen to. Personally, I like the fire that OB had and I liked his passion on the sidelines.

Realizing that NOW was the right time is something I will always appreciate. It takes someone with some serious values to admit these things and want to put his kids in a position to be successful.

The timing really couldn't be better. Jeff will have plenty of time to find a replacement and although a coaching change may be difficult, ISU will have a head start over most universities that are looking.
 
i believe that baller1, skippy, votb, tuffgong, coastal bengal, bill_idaflls and bengalcub have summed up my feelings pretty well.........kudos to Joe for "manning up"...many coaches are unable to see when it is time.....best of luck to them....
 
It was a tough move to make, but the right one. Best wishes to Joe, and good luck to Deane and the players. Time to move forward.
 
O'Brien has had great success in his lifetime and I hope that he finds it again.

With that said I think its sad that some of you post like the all of a sudden ISU will turn around because he is gone. Believe it or not but ISU has even bigger issues that hurt the coaches and IMO make it almost impossible to win games. From cutting budgets, to the way the Athletic Dept communicate (or fail to) with staff, from the way people support (or don't support) the teams.

I have sat here and watched for years as many of you have ripped coaches like you had a clue what goes one in these programs lives and then come in now and say good things about him. So enjoy this people who bash the coaches on this site, once again you will get your wish.
 
Wow, I'm surprised by this move. Many people in O'Brien's situation would dig in and go on to the bitter end. I wasn't the biggest fan of his tenure at ISU, but I always hoped he could get it done. IMO, Bengal teams in the last 6 years had some talent but a never really delivered, especially late in the game.

Not that it matters to anyone, but O'Brien has earned a measure of respect with me.
 
Give me a break, E5. You take a high profile job, be it in New York City or Pocatello, then you better expect your every professional move to be under a microscope and be open to critique, good or bad.

Nobody wishes O'Brien ill will. He shouldn't have been hired in the first place, but we were all pulling for him regardless. His experience was with 2-year basketball, and it showed. He couldn't recruit, because ISU isn't a placement program like his previous JC was. He couldn't balance classes, because he was used to 2 years instead of 4. He didn't know how to schedule, otherwise he wouldn't have signed so many 2 for 1 games to correspond at the same time. He had no idea how to redshirt, so he burned some. Brunswick may or may not have been ready for this level of play, but Joe wasted his entire year of eligibility last year by playing him in one or two games, sparingly, then letting him ride the bench the rest of the season.

The offense under O'Brien has always been poor. He has recruited bad big players. He has recruited rebounders who can't score. He has recruited PG's who don't pass. When Frank used to run the ISU blog, he kept saying O'Brien was still learning. It got to the point of embarrassing.

The final nails for me happened last year. The performance in Sacramento was a black eye for the program. He and Cory took away any chance of a win with their selfishness in the final moments, and the fan who came charging out of the crowd in O'Brien's defense put an exclamation point on the ugly moment. In the Montana State game, ISU had 4 players on the floor after play resumed. I never saw that happen in junior high ball! Then a player realized there were only 4 players, so he ran off the bench into the game. And ISU got yet another technical. Yep, this is when I knew the program was in a non-stop downward spiral.

Nobody expects to be a national basketball power. We do expect to be competitive and to be able to beat regional schools from time to time. Oliver's teams at least could beat Boise State and Idaho from time to time. Herb's teams drew almost 5,000 fans for a season, not so long ago.

I hope all works out for him. Just don't try to make us out to be the bad guys and O'Brien the innocent victim. I'm glad he stepped down when he did, and I think it shows some incredible character on his part.
 
sasquatch said:
Give me a break, E5. You take a high profile job, be it in New York City or Pocatello, then you better expect your every professional move to be under a microscope and be open to critique, good or bad.

Nobody wishes O'Brien ill will. He shouldn't have been hired in the first place, but we were all pulling for him regardless. His experience was with 2-year basketball, and it showed. He couldn't recruit, because ISU isn't a placement program like his previous JC was. He couldn't balance classes, because he was used to 2 years instead of 4. He didn't know how to schedule, otherwise he wouldn't have signed so many 2 for 1 games to correspond at the same time. He had no idea how to redshirt, so he burned some. Brunswick may or may not have been ready for this level of play, but Joe wasted his entire year of eligibility last year by playing him in one or two games, sparingly, then letting him ride the bench the rest of the season.

The offense under O'Brien has always been poor. He has recruited bad big players. He has recruited rebounders who can't score. He has recruited PG's who don't pass. When Frank used to run the ISU blog, he kept saying O'Brien was still learning. It got to the point of embarrassing.

The final nails for me happened last year. The performance in Sacramento was a black eye for the program. He and Cory took away any chance of a win with their selfishness in the final moments, and the fan who came charging out of the crowd in O'Brien's defense put an exclamation point on the ugly moment. In the Montana State game, ISU had 4 players on the floor after play resumed. I never saw that happen in junior high ball! Then a player realized there were only 4 players, so he ran off the bench into the game. And ISU got yet another technical. Yep, this is when I knew the program was in a non-stop downward spiral.

Nobody expects to be a national basketball power. We do expect to be competitive and to be able to beat regional schools from time to time. Oliver's teams at least could beat Boise State and Idaho from time to time. Herb's teams drew almost 5,000 fans for a season, not so long ago.

I hope all works out for him. Just don't try to make us out to be the bad guys and O'Brien the innocent victim. I'm glad he stepped down when he did, and I think it shows some incredible character on his part.
Click to expand...

As a Hornet fan, that was the best part of our lousy season last year :lol:
 
E5Bengal said:
O'Brien has had great success in his lifetime and I hope that he finds it again.

With that said I think its sad that some of you post like the all of a sudden ISU will turn around because he is gone. Believe it or not but ISU has even bigger issues that hurt the coaches and IMO make it almost impossible to win games. From cutting budgets, to the way the Athletic Dept communicate (or fail to) with staff, from the way people support (or don't support) the teams.

I have sat here and watched for years as many of you have ripped coaches like you had a clue what goes one in these programs lives and then come in now and say good things about him. So enjoy this people who bash the coaches on this site, once again you will get your wish.
Click to expand...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
:dunce: :dunce: :rofl:

It would have been courteous of Joe to wait another week or so, so we could have given him a proper sendoff from Ogden.....
O'brien would not have lasted more than 2 seasons in Ogden. ISU hasn't been competitive since Stucki... I always thought it was ironic that native Pocatello & 2 year Weber starter Nick Hansen drained 7 3's against ISU his senior year when O'brien's roster was full of nothing but Memphis kids.....
Did O'brien ever give former WSU standout & southern Idaho native Trevor Morris a look? I doubt it..
 
"The timing really couldn't be better. Jeff will have plenty of time to find a replacement and although a coaching change may be difficult, ISU will have a head start over most universities that are looking."-BENGALCLUB 1701 POSTS

Are you out of your mind!?.. Accepted mantra I guess.

ISU IS BROKEN FROM THE INSIDE!
 
elspanko said:
"The timing really couldn't be better. Jeff will have plenty of time to find a replacement and although a coaching change may be difficult, ISU will have a head start over most universities that are looking."-BENGALCLUB 1701 POSTS

Are you out of your mind!?.. Accepted mantra I guess.

ISU IS BROKEN FROM THE INSIDE!
Click to expand...


Surprise surprise. A new poster who comes on here right when O'Brien quits and talks trash about the administration. Same thing happened when Zamberlain was let go. Coach OB didn't get it done, plain and simple.

Here is what is funny to me. This year was the last year of Coach OB's contract. He knew that he had to win or he wouldn't get a new deal. This has been very common and public knowledge. I think any of us in that situation would have worked our hardest to recruit like crazy and put the best possible team on the floor. What did OB do? He left 1 scholarship open. Talk about stupid. You have a scholarship to give in your last year of your contract and you don't give it out? WOW. And all along the way you blame the administration? You have to recruit to win and OB has been a terrible recruiter.

Now I know what the OB supporters are going to say. They're going to say that it's hard to recruit in the last year of your contract. Let's go back to the recruiting class that Coach Oliver had when he had 1 year left on his deal:

Akbar Abdul Ahad
Kasey Winters
John Ofoegbu
Tony Jones
Ryan Baumgartner
Matt Stucki

compare that to:

Melvin Morgan (very solid, good recruit)
Dejan Kostur
Vishal Banipal

There is no comparison in those 2 classes by coaches in very similar situations.

Stop blaming the administration, just get the job done.
 
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