The Kim English era is over at Providence. In his three years at the helm, he has amassed a 48-52 overall record and an astounding 13-27 record in Big East play the last two years. Kim was a risky hire from the onset, as fans hoped his recruiting reputation would exceed his lack of experience as a high major D1 head coach. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and Providence is now looking for a new coach after just three short years.
So, why did the Kim English era not work out? We provide our belief on why below.
Lack of head coaching experience
Kim English accepted the Providence job despite only having two years of head coaching experience and being in his mid thirties at the time of hire. We were all in an uproar over the Cooley departure, so we so wanted to buy-in to Kim English being “the guy that put us over the top of Cooley” without giving too much analysis on the actual merits of the hire.
Looking back now, it’s incredible that he was even given an interview, let alone the job. This is not to besmirch English, by the way. It’s just stating the facts.
His resume at the point of hire was not one that should land him the lead job of a Top 25 basketball program, which Providence was at the time of the hire. He was 34-29 in his two years at George Mason with no NCAA tournament appearances. That’s not a resume worthy of a step up to the Big East.
If you stepped away from the emotions of it all (which I admittedly didn’t do), you would have seen this hire was a complete reach and projection in the same way that Kyle Neptune and Villanova was.
Despite all that, he got the job, and we hoped his excellent recruiting abilities, desire to implement a more modern system, and ability to connect more personally with the players as a young coach would outweigh his coaching accomplishments. Simply put, they didn’t. His recruiting acumen, which is probably the best trait of the English era, wasn’t enough to overcome the years of experience his fellow Big East coaches had. The opposing coaches had been head coaches for decades, in some cases coaching for as long as Kim English has been alive. The lack of experience with in-game coaching provided to be too wide of a gap to overcome for Kim, and that is an unfortunate truth we probably should have taken more seriously come interview time.
It’s not Kim’s fault he interviewed well and got the job, but he was probably put in too difficult of a position too early in his coaching career when going up against veteran coaches like Dan Hurley, Rick Pitino, Greg McDermott, Shaka Smart, etc. That’s a murderer’s row of head coaches that even the best of coaches nationally would struggle against, let alone a guy in his mid 30’s with two years of prior head coaching experience.
Portal Misses
The irony of Kim’s errors in the portal is that English is one of the best evaluators of high school talent that PC has seen in 20+ years. Unfortunately, as good as he was in high school recruiting, he was that poor at portal evaluation. Providence has the NIL funds to attract top end talent, but too often that talent didn’t live up to expectations and/or had personality issues that clashed with the rest of the roster.
Here is a list of some of his misses in the portal in just his three years, and you can see why this contributed to Kim’s failures at Providence: Christ Essandoko, Wesley Cardet, Will McNair, Jason Edwards, Cole Hargrove, Duncan Powell.
The only true “hits” with his portal additions were Bensley Joseph and Jaylin Sellers.
You cannot be this ineffective in the portal and expect to have lasting success. This is where the next coach should probably have a GM on staff who can manage the portal evaluation more effectively and take that off the hands of the head coach.
I legitimately think Kim would have had more success as a head coach if he eschewed the portal entirely à la Shaka Smart and just leaned into high school recruiting and continuity.
Roster misevaluation, Part 1
Kim ultimately fell short because he was unable to land in his three years the following two vital positions: True Point Guard and Back Up Center. In his first year, Devin Carter was all world/do everything and covered up the warts of a lack of a true point, but not having a lead man reared its ugly head in Years 2 and 3.
Bensley and Pierre were more scoring guards than true floor generals, and the same can be said for Year 3 where Floyd was given the reins as true point without necessarily showing he could be that guy. They tried to force a square peg in a round hole with Floyd, and it didn’t work out.
Jason Edwards was given the opportunity, but he is too small, cares mostly about scoring, and lacks a quality handle.
A true point guard was sorely needed for Kim all three years, and he went 0-3. In an NBA-centric offense, having a true table setter at the 1 likely makes the story of Kim English at Providence vastly different.
Roster misevaluation, Part 2
Oddly enough, the back-up 5 position may have been Kim’s downfall too. In Year 1, we had nobody that could play behind Oduro. Will McNair was that answer, but he left legitimately weeks before the season started, and that became a glaring issue. I don’t fault Kim for that sudden departure beyond the fact that his portal evaluation should have shown that McNair was not a locker room fit.
Castro, who is a borderline NBA prospect now, was unplayable despite Kim giving him an abundance of chances. Same goes for year 2 behind Oswin where Essandoko was woefully out of shape and Bonke was too raw as a true freshman. I had really high hopes for that front court and had egg on my face for that trio not restocking the Friar front court cupboard for years to come.
Year 3 was more of the same with English choosing to move away from Bonke inexplicably and go with the ineffective Hargrove and Peteris Pinnis. I personally would have paid Bonke a premium to retain him, as he was always going to be a 3-4 year project, but I digress. I’ve made my thoughts on this topic quite clear already.
The lack of a capable back-up 5 led to precipitous drop off in play once the starting center had to exit the game. Never would I have thought this would be such a thorn in the side of English, but this is one of those factors which ultimately did Kim in.
Unfortunate luck in Year 1
I do believe English would be on the hot seat after this year regardless, but there’s a high likelihood he is retained for Year 4 if he made the NCAA tournament in Year 1. If you recall, PC absolutely had a resume worthy of a tournament, along with must see star power in Devin Carter, but there were a plethora of bid stealers in conference tournament weekend that ultimately blocked PC from securing a bid.
The committee decided to let some MVC mid-majors in along with a crappy UVA team, and I’ll always chastise the Big East leadership and Val Ackerman for not pounding the table for PC and Seton Hall, amongst others, during the committee decision meetings. If Kim makes the tournament in Year 1, he is seen as the future of PC hoops and has a much longer leash. What could have been…
Lack of identity
If you were to ask a PC fan, “What was Kim English’s teams best known for?”, I don’t know if you’d get a consensus response. Kim’s lack of experience prevented him from building a culture and system that he could teach year after year.
In Year 1, the offense was heavily reliant on Josh Oduro, but Years 2 and 3 showed almost an allergic reaction to featuring the big in a half court set. It makes little sense.
Kim came in as a guy who had solid defenses, but his teams worsened at defense as the years went on.
Ultimately, Kim’s Providence era will probably be known for trying to make a college team a replica of an NBA team with 3 pointers and lay-ups, but there was never any grand vision or clarity as to what Kim truly wanted to do.
Aversion/Disinterest to building kinship with Providence community
Coaching is a very binary profession. You are judged on wins and losses. Ultimately, that dictates your length of employment, but Kim didn’t do himself any favors with his almost antagonistic approach to the fans and media members. Talking down to reporters and trying to showcase your basketball intellect in a condescending manner isn’t going to do you any favors, particularly in bad times, and Kim was too often guilty of that in my opinion.
The PC fanbase is incredibly loyal, but Kim routinely did things that pushed the Friar faithful away. I’ve spoken with Kim twice in a private setting (not a media interview or in a big audience), and both encounters were overwhelmingly pleasant. The Kim I see in interviews isn’t the one I had conversations with. He seems to put a guard up and prevents his true self from being shown. By doing this, the fanbase and talking heads aren’t going to run cover and protect Kim if things start to go sour, which they did.
He didn’t make many friends, and if anything, he proactively poked the bear with fans and media members. Regardless of where he ends up next, I hope this point is hammered home by whomever is advising him because I do think when he’s away from the bright lights and mic, he’s a good guy. Unfortunately, he didn’t give himself the chance to show that side and developed an almost combative relationship with the fans and local media.
What’s Next?
In the end, Steve Napollilo went for a grand slam hire that had all the potential in the world, but was clearly a high risk, high reward hire. It didn’t work out, and I hope Kim dusts himself off and lands on his feet. He certainly won’t be financially strapped so it’s hard to feel too bad for him besides his suffering of a bruised ego.
He stepped into this position at a time when the PC community felt betrayed by their former head coach, and I’ll always appreciate him for that. He was put in a tough position, and I commend him for giving it his best shot. It was too big of a job too early in his career, and I’m sure he’ll be better off for this experience down the road.
For Napolillo, this was hopefully a valuable lesson learned (and expensive one). We’ll see if the next hire reflects these lessons learned from the Kim English experiment.
Go Friars.