Ancient Eight Watches Another Big Talent Go

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

On Monday, Brown University Athletics announced a surprising change in their men’s basketball program. Craig Robinson, head coach of the Bears for the last two seasons, was stepping down in order to take the vacant head coaching position at Oregon State.

What makes the move so unexpected is that Robinson made the move after one of the most successful seasons in Brown’s history, with the Bears rolling off an 11-3 mark in Ivy League play, the second-best record all-time at Brown.

To be fair, Robinson would have faced a difficult task had he stayed in Providence for 2009. The Bears are losing their top three players from this season—Damon Huffman, Mark McAndrew, and Mark MacDonald—to graduation. A run at the top of the conference would have meant an uphill battle against a dominant Cornell team that is returning all of its key players from this year’s title, as well as a fight against a resurgent Penn team loaded with young talent. Brown may have been this year’s big surprise in the Ancient Eight, but repeating that success would have been a tall order to follow.

It also can’t be overstated how much of a career jump this is for Robinson. Oregon State may have gone winless in Pac-10 play last season, but you don’t need me to tell you that the Pac-10 itself is worlds away from the Ivy League in terms of competition, national exposure, and opportunity for success. For what it’s worth, Oregon State seems pretty excited about bringing Robinson on board. The OSU Web site has a big banner welcoming the former Ivy League Player of the Year and even has an option allowing you to send him a personalized welcome of your own. No word on whether or not Steve Donahue or Glen Miller have taken advantage of the opportunity.

Nonetheless, Robinson is following a path of established success on a bigger stage for former Ivy League coaches. Last year saw Joe Scott grow weary of Princeton and leave New Jersey for the University of Denver. In their first season under Scott, the Pioneers went 11-19 and 7-11 in the Sun Belt conference, a huge improvement over 2006’s 4-25 overall record and 3-15 mark in league play. The former Dean of Ivy League coaches, Fran Dunphy, left arguably the best job in the conference with Penn to go across town to Temple. In his first year, the Owls finished second in the Atlantic-10 conference. Last year, they won the A-10 title and earned an NCAA Tournament berth.

And then of course, there’s Armond Hill. Back in 2003, Hill was fired as Columbia’s head coach after a horrendous 2-25 season, including a winless Ivy campaign, making it the worst season in Columbia basketball history. Hill rebounded quickly, though, joining the Atlanta Hawks as an assistant coach for the 2003-2004 season, and the year after that, teaming up with Doc Rivers and the Boston Celtics. Hill is still an assistant with the Celtics, who on Tuesday won their 62nd game of the season and are the favorites to win the NBA Championship.

It’s more than possible for Ivy coaches to go on to bigger and better things, as Dunphy and Hill have proven. Even Glen Miller, the man Robinson replaced at Brown, jumped up in the Ivy rankings to Penn, where he has a chance to contend in 2009. That doesn’t mean, however, that it isn’t a disappointment to see a superb coaching talent like Robinson get snatched away by an established program. Unfortunately, that’s the nature of college basketball—once the best establish themselves, it’ll be just a short time before they’re gone.

We see this happen all the time in the NCAA with both players and coaches. High school superstars join the top college programs, wow the fans for a year, and then pick up stakes and try to make their way in the NBA. If anything, college basketball is a nonstop rebuilding game. One year, Florida crushes teams left and right en route to the national championship. The next year, minus Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer, the Gators fall flat against the University of Massachusetts in the NIT semifinals. Even Kansas, after pulling off a miracle championship win over Memphis this year, is left wondering if head coach Bill Self is going to take the money and run to Oklahoma State, much like Roy Williams did to the Jayhawks in 2003 when he left for UNC.

These situations don’t really exist in the Ivy League. Players don’t leave their programs after one year with visions of NBA millions in their eyes, and coaches aren’t constantly mulling over offers from top schools year after year. But Robinson’s sudden departure confirms something that every Ivy League fan already knows—when you’re in a small conference, it’s hard to keep a top talent from moving on.

The Providence Journal’s Bill Reynolds, in a quote to the Oregon State Web site, put it best. “Robinson is a star on the rise, and he’s simply too good and Brown basketball is too small to keep him. That’s just the way it is.” It’s a shame that has to be the truth.

Jonathan Tayler is a Columbia College junior majoring in history.