After several years of an underwhelming basketball program, NSU has become a title contender in three short years since Coach Jim Crutchfield’s hiring.
Coming off of a 6-20 season in 2016-2017, NSU hired coach Jim Crutchfield to revive the basketball program. This was no easy job, as NSU’s last winning season was in 2012-2013. This was nothing new to Crutchfield, though. When Crutchfield got his first job as a head coach at West Liberty University in 2004, the team was coming off a 4-23 season. Crutchfield led the Hilltoppers to a 21-10 record in his first season and would go on to never have a losing season in his time at West Liberty.
Crutchfield wasn’t always a basketball coach. In fact, he was the tennis coach at West Liberty University before becoming the head basketball coach in 2004. During his time as the basketball coach, he had a record of 359-61 and an 85.5% win/loss ratio. Additionally, Crutchfield won seven consecutive conference championships from 2009-2016. When his contract ended in 2017, Crutchfield decided it was time for something else: rebuilding Nova Southeastern University’s basketball program.
Crutchfield didn’t come to NSU alone. He brought two former players of his from West Liberty to be on staff with him: Devin Hoehn and Jordan Fee.
When asked about their importance, Crutchfield said, “I was able to bring two former players with me on the staff who know exactly what I want to do. It’s a big help.”
Coach Fee and Coach Hoehn have a tremendous impact on the players because they came directly from his system. They know exactly how to teach it because they played in it.
Since Coach Crutchfield took over in 2017, NSU has a record of 69-20, which is a 77.5% win/loss ratio. Additionally, the Sharks have led the conference in scoring and points per game every season since Crutchfield’s hiring. In his time, the team’s field goal percentage has never been below 45% and continues to improve with each season. Good shots are what the team wants and it is evident by their shooting percentages.
Coach Crutchfield’s teams don’t play the average brand of basketball. Crutchfield’s system is very demanding and requires his players to leave everything on the court. It is essential that his players be in the best shape possible. His system requires a constant full court press with trapping. Crutchfield is one of the only coaches in all of college basketball to run this system. He created the system at the University of West Liberty after a 4-23 season. He credits the system’s creation to having freedom due to low expectations in his first year at West Liberty.
“I had nothing to lose and I had some ideas that I thought would be a good way to play… I had the opportunity to be creative and try some things with no fear of doing bad because we were expected to be bad,” said Crutchfield.
Despite leading the Sunshine State Conference in scoring for every year since he’s been at NSU, Crutchfield is adamant about taking good shots rather than forcing up low percentage shots. Contrary to what the statistics say, Crutchfield doesn’t play the run-and-gun style of basketball. He wants to score but stops on the defensive side are more important to him.
“A good indication about our team is that people think we’re run-and-gun but we’re not… We want the ball back without them scoring but we aren’t into giving free points. We want to get stops,” said Crutchfield.
Crutchfield preferably wants his team to shoot inside the first half of the shot clock but says “if it’s a shot we know we can get at any time; we will look for a better one first.”
For Coach Crutchfield, it’s about being aggressive but smart at the same time and the system has been an enormous success for the coach. Coach Crutchfield has the best winning percentage in NCAA men’s basketball history with 84.1%.
When asked about his historic win percentage, Crutchfield said, “I’m still coaching, so that can change any day. My wife tells me to quit while I’m ahead.”
With the success that Coach Crutchfield has had, this begs the question: why don’t any schools implement his system into their program?
When asked, Coach Crutchfield said that, “It’s hard to play… Everybody thinks they want to play this way, but it is very taxing. You’re all spread out, and if you’re not good at it, you’ll give up easy buckets all the time.”
Contrary to about every basketball program in the country, Crutchfield has a different way of keeping his players’ game ready at all times. Rather than going through drills, he has his players play intense scrimmages. In these scrimmages, stats are kept, and it is extremely competitive.
When asked about his philosophy, Crutchfield said, “there’s two types of conditioning: there’s the physical conditioning that you get from running, and there’s the mental conditioning on where to run and how to run, when to get a breath of air without costing your team anything. You learn that by playing games. I learned that if we can condition by playing live, we can satisfy both the physical and mental aspects of conditioning.”
The success hasn’t gone unnoticed. NBA coaches, Erik Spoelstra and Brad Stevens, have met up with Crutchfield to talk about basketball.
“[Coach Spoelstra] called and wanted to get together to talk basketball. It was a great time. We spent 5 hours together talking basketball. It was a great experience, and he was such a nice guy. I can see why his players like him,” said Crutchfield.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sunshine State Conference has delayed the start of the basketball season until at least Feb. 15, 2021. With Coach Crutchfield at the helm, it’s safe to say the NSU Sharks are in good hands.
