After Disastrous Seasons, Harvard and Princeton Add New Coaches

Following disappointing outcomes in the 2006-2007 Ivy League basketball season, Harvard and Princeton sought to find new sparks for their teams this season. This change culminated in the hiring of new head coaches in the offseason—Sydney Johnson for Princeton and Tommy Amaker for Harvard. Both teams hope the change in their coaching regimes will provide the necessary boost to improve upon their preseason poll rankings, where they are only higher than Dartmouth.

Sydney Johnson joins the head coach of Brown, Craig Robinson, as the second Princeton alumnus to be coaching in the Ivy League. Johnson, class of ’97, becomes the youngest head coach in the league. He replaces Joe Scott, who resigned on March 20 to become the head coach of the University of Denver

Johnson returns to a Princeton basketball program that has made a complete turnaround for the worse since his graduation. During his tenure as a Tiger, Johnson was a four-year starter and the only three-year captain in Princeton history. His career was highlighted by being named Ivy League Player of the Year in 1997 and leading the Tigers to a first-round upset win in the NCAA tournament over reigning champions UCLA.

Following his graduation from Princeton, Johnson spent seven seasons playing professional basketball in Italy and Spain and has spent the last three seasons on Coach John Thompson III’s coaching staff at national powerhouse Georgetown as an assistant. Johnson’s time with the Hoyas was capped off by their appearance in the NCAA Final Four last season.

Meanwhile in Massachusetts, Tommy Amaker joins the Harvard basketball program following a successful coaching career as an assistant at Duke for nine seasons, and then as head coach at Seton Hall (four seasons) and Michigan (six seasons). He replaces Coach Frank Sullivan, whose contract was not renewed following last season’s disappointing record. Along with his coaching expertise, Amaker brings former Blue Devil Kenny Blakeney as an assistant coach and Kirsten Green to serve as Harvard’s first-ever director of basketball operations.

Amaker, a graduate of Duke University in the class of ’87, was a four-year starting point guard. His playing career at Duke was highlighted by reaching the NCAA championship in 1986 and in 1987, serving as team captain, receiving All-American honors while being named the nation’s top defensive player. His playing career also consists of a gold medal as part of the U.S. national team at the FIBA World Championship. Following his collegiate career, Amaker was drafted by the Seattle Supersonics.

One of the biggest upsides to Amaker is his ability to recruit, exemplified during his stay at Seton Hall. In 2000, he recruited the number two recruiting class in the nation and led the Pirates to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen. The following season Amaker left for the vacant head coaching position at Michigan.

Amaker joins Harvard after being fired by Michigan at the end of the 2006-2007 season for his inability to get the Wolverines into the NCAA tournament despite an NIT Tournament championship in 2004. When Michigan hired Amaker, he inherited a program that had been facing both institutional and NCAA sanctions and left the program in a cleaned-up state.

Both of these teams hope their changes in coaching staffs will serve as a revolution to push them out of their recent basketball woes. Despite his youth and relative inexperience, Princeton hopes that Coach Johnson can bring a spark of energy to the team and push them to success. Harvard finds an experienced coach in Amaker and hopes he can bring his past experiences with him to help improve their program in the future.