Ahead of this weekend’s season-opening game, we’re breaking down all of the elements of CU’s men’s basketball team. Today: meet the coaches.
Head coach Tad Boyle discusses the upcoming season during media day on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014, at the Coors Events Center in Boulder, Colo. (Matt Sisneros/CU Independent)
Head coach Tad Boyle: Boyle grew up 60 miles northeast of Boulder in Greeley, Colorado. He played college ball for Larry Brown at Kansas from 1981 to 1985 and was a team captain his senior year. After college, he worked as a stockbroker and coached high school teams part-time.
In 1994, Boyle began coaching full-time, first for three years at Oregon, then for one at Tennessee. In 1998, he joined Jacksonville State, where his Kansas teammate Mark Turgeon had just been hired as head coach. Turgeon bolted for Wichita State in 2000, and Boyle followed him, again as an assistant. The Shockers were far from today’s mid-major juggernaut then, and they finished 9-19 in Boyle’s first season. Wichita State won more games every season, though, and in 2006 made it to the Sweet 16 (where they lost to an even bigger upstart, Final Four-bound George Mason).
After that, Boyle went back to Greeley as head coach at Northern Colorado, which was entering its first season of Division-I basketball. The Bears finished with a losing record Boyle’s first three years — the 4-24 mark from his debut season was particularly ugly — but in his fourth season, Northern Colorado won 25 games and earned its first postseason berth.
Boyle replaced Jeff Bzdelik at Colorado in 2010 after a disastrous four-year stretch under Bzdelik and Ricardo Patton, in which the Buffaloes went 53-78. They had not made the NCAA Tournament since 2003. Boyle set the Colorado record with 24 wins in his first season, though the Buffs were controversially snubbed from the tournament.
“You can make the argument that our first team was our most talented team, our best team,” Boyle said. “Our best team at Colorado didn’t make the tournament.”
Boyle’s next three teams did, though. This was the first such stretch in Buffs history. His four seasons boast the most wins the school has ever had. In 2012, Colorado won the Pac-12 and upset sixth-seeded UNLV in the tournament’s first round. The Buffs lost badly in last year’s tournament, though, and Boyle has said that simply getting into the dance this season is not good enough.
Jean Prioleau, Colorado associate head coach, helps his team run through drills during practice in the Coors Events Center, Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, in Boulder, Colo. (Kai Casey/CU Independent)
Associate head coach Jean Prioleau: The Jersey-native played collegiately at Fordham. He was an all-conference guard as a senior and led the Rams to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 20 years.
Prioleau signed with the Indiana Pacers as an undrafted free agent, but they cut him on the last day of his rookie camp. He played professionally in Switzerland, Italy and Turkey, with a stint in training camp with the New York Knicks and a summer with the New Jersey Nets.
He rejoined Fordham for a season as an assistant coach in 1999, then landed with Turgeon’s Wichita State staff, where he coached alongside Boyle. Prioleau left the Shockers in 2005 to spend a year under Tom Crean at Marquette and then joined Iowa State for two seasons. In 2008, he became recruiting coordinator at TCU, and he joined Colorado when Boyle took over as head coach.
Colorado assistant coach Mike Rohn yells instructions to his players during a first-round Pac-12 Tournament game between Colorado and Southern California on Wednesday, March 12, 2014, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nev. (Kai Casey/CU Independent)
Assistant head coach Mike Rohn: Rohn, from Kansas, was a two-time all-conference guard at McPherson College, and he started his coaching career as an assistant there after he graduated.
The first decade of his career, he bounced around tiny schools — Colby Community College, Fort Hays State, where he earned his master’s degree, Dodge City Community College — before landing at Wichita State in 2000 with Turgeon, Boyle and Prioleau.
Rohn stayed at Wichita State until 2007, when he followed Turgeon to Texas A&M, this time as director of basketball operations. Like Prioleau, he came to Colorado in 2010 when Boyle took over.
Assistant coach Rodney Billups watches players run through drills during practice before media day last Wednesday. (Matt Sisneros/CU Independent)
Assistant head coach Rodney Billups: CU Independent sports writer Alissa Noe profiled Billups in much greater detail here, but he is a graduate of the University of Denver, where he played point guard for four years. He played professionally in Latvia and Finland, has worked for Colorado basketball for five years and is the younger brother of former Buff and NBA great Chauncey Billups.
Director of player development Sean Kearney oversees practice before media day last Wednesday. (Matt Sisneros/CU Independent)
Director of player development Sean Kearney: The most experienced coach on Colorado’s staff got his start as a high school coach in 1981. The Pennsylvanian spent the next three decades as an assistant, with stops at Providence — where he went to a Final Four — Delaware and Northwestern, and nine years at Notre Dame.
Kearney left Notre Dame in 2009 and spent a season as head coach at the College of the Holy Cross. He took three years off after that, calling color for Fighting Irish radio broadcasts and for Big East and Big Ten games on ESPN. He joined the Buffs last season.
Director of basketball operations Bill Cartun: Cartun graduated from Bates College and earned his master’s at UConn. He worked three years for the Charlotte Hornets (then known as the Bobcats) and came to Colorado five years ago as video coordinator.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Tommy Wood at Thomas.C.Wood@colorado.edu.
