New era begins at Butler with Brian Barone at helm

There is only one way to categorize Butler Community College Brian Barone’s approach to his first season leading a program, on any level.

Full speed ahead.

“It’s been a whirlwind, no doubt,” said Barone, who was hired in June after five seasons as an assistant coach at Milwaukee-Green Bay. “There’s always things about taking a new job or being on different coaching staffs that you have to figure out in that first summer or that first month. Definitely hectic, definitely chaotic.

“I’m learning to put together a team other than doing it from an assistant’s standpoint.”

Barone did his fair share of work in putting together a team. He got a little help from his predecessor and former Marquette teammate, Bradley assistant coach Mike Bargen, who left a pair of standout sophomores on the roster off last year’s Jayhawk West championship team – 6-foot-3 guard Jacolby Harris and 6-4 forward Chris Howell.

“It’s always unique when you have a new coach coming in and you don’t know him and he doesn’t know you,” Barone said. “But I did know a little bit about Howell, because he’s from Milwaukee, so I probably knew more about him than he did about me prior to me coming here.

“(Bargen) was just a heck of a coach and we had a lot of overlapping connections from recruiting and knowing each other as long as we did. One thing that was important to me was to acknowledge what those guys accomplished last year when I got here. I think that helped with the adjustment as well.”

Knowing the connection between Barone and Bargen existed helped with the players’ transition, too.

“I wasn’t really worried about chemistry or anything like that,” Harris said. “It definitely helped that I knew (Bargen) and (Barone) knew each other from way back, so I was pretty comfortable with the change.”

And comfortable giving advice to the newcomers, although they didn’t need it for very long.

“They did come to me for advice at first on a few things,” Harris said. “But they started catching on to everything pretty quickly.”

When Barone was hired, he made a point of saying he was headed right to Chicago to begin recruiting — a trip that came into much clearer focus when he landed 6-foot-10 forward Ken Perkins, a south-side product out of North Lawndale High who is one of the more buzzed-about junior college players in the country.

Perkins flew under the radar on Chicago’s basketball scene until his senior year, when he grew seven inches to 6-9. Over the summer before this season, he grew another inch. Perkins has the skills to play guard and the sensibility to gravitate toward the post, although his growth spurt has made keeping on weight difficult.

“(Perkins) has a lot of talent,” Barone said. “He’s a lefty with those long arms and still has the skills of a guard ... he can handle the ball, shoot the ball and pass it, just a good feel for the game. The only problem is he’s still very skinny because he started growing out of nowhere and his metabolism hasn’t completely caught up with that.

“I think he has a chance to be a very good player, a highly-recruited player eventually, but he just needs to get used to the physicality. It’s been a pleasant surprise to have him here. He was the first guy that I went to recruit when I got the job.”

Perkins said his adjustment to the college game hasn’t been easy, but was quick to point out the upside in his development.

“(Barone) keeps me in the weight room, he doesn’t let up about that,” Perkins said. “And I know I need to get bigger and stronger, but I’m adjusting to the speed and the physicality as I go. One thing I really like with the shot clock is, defensively, I think I will be able to do some things. It forces people to make decisions.”

One decision Barone didn’t have to deal with was the Jayhawk Conference’s move away from East and West divisions to two divisions split between the league’s 14 NJCAA Division I schools, which Butler is a part of, and the five Division II schools. It’s a move that’s caused some consternation among veteran coaches in the league.

For Barone, it’s just the way it’s always been.

“It’s just ‘Here are your games, go play them,’ ” Barone said. “I didn’t have a say in the change or how it was done in the past, so for me to come in and have an opinion if it’s good or bad isn’t really my place. I’m excited for the opportunity to come in and coach in one of the best junior-college leagues in the country. I want us competing for the title, because that’s what I’m used to.”

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 5:00 AM with the headline "New era begins at Butler with Brian Barone at helm."