By: Trent Strafaci
NSU Athletic Director Michael Mominey introduced former West Liberty Men’s Basketball Coach Jim Crutchfield as new head men’s basketball coach for NSU on March 23. NSU staff, coaches, and students had the opportunity to meet Crutchfield and ask questions at a press conference in the Rick Case Arena.
Jim Crutchfield, according to the NSU athletics website, has the highest career winning percentage in college basketball history among all NCAA coaches that spent at least 10 seasons at one school. At West Liberty he had a 359-61 record, which resulted in a winning percentage of 855 percent. This puts him in a class of coaches like John Wooden of UCLA and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke. Crutchfield was also named coach of the year two times and made it to seven straight Sweet Sixteens from 2010-2016.
Athletic Director Mike Mominey said, “If I had a headline for the story it would be: ‘The wizard of West Virginia is going to meet South Florida.’”
Monimey said that Crutchfield is a coach who keeps things simple, has great integrity, displays great focus and has undying passion for basketball.
Crutchfield said he is looking forward to the opportunity to work at a great university with a great reputation.
“You can look at the banners and see all the great success this school has had,” he said. “I want to change the culture as far is winning goes for the basketball program.”
Although Crutchfield said that leaving West Liberty was one of the hardest things to do, he also said he couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a challenge.
“Following former coach Gary Truel is an honor,” Crutchfield said. “He built a great program here, and was a good coach and really good guy. I look forward to building towards the future.”
Crutchfield says he plans on running an offense that presses on defense.
“You can win basketball games a number of different ways but you need to try harder than anyone else,” he explained. “We need to play a non-division schedule against only Division II teams to be ready for our conference schedule. The SSC is a really good league. I am not going to promise how many wins or how many championships we [will] have but be we will be ready to battle.”
Caption: New basketball coach Jim Crutchfield answers questions at a press conference on March 23.
Credit: D. Pucillo
