‘They need to give him the job’: Support grows for Isaac Brown as full-time WSU coach
If there was ever a time for Isaac Brown to reflect on his own journey, it would have been following Wichita State’s euphoric 68-63 victory over then-No. 6 Houston a week ago Thursday at Koch Arena.
In a must-win game for the Shockers’ NCAA Tournament chances, WSU beat a team ranked that high at home for the first time in 54 years. And now heading into the month of March, the Shockers (13-4, 9-2 AAC) are in sole possession of first place in the American Athletic Conference and in the mix to return to March Madness — all under the leadership of Brown, who was promoted to interim head coach under dire circumstances.
Just three months ago, a proud Wichita State program, not far removed from a Final Four run and historic 35-1 season, was in flux. Six scholarship players had transferred from last season’s team. The iconic coach who elevated WSU to a national power had resigned amid an internal investigation into abuse allegations a week before the start of the season. And if that wasn’t enough turmoil, COVID-19 had spread through the team and was the main culprit to a 1-2 start to the season.
Yet, the very same WSU team picked to finish seventh in the conference by its coaches is now a week away from claiming its first AAC championship.
It would be the perfect time for Brown to start to angle to keep the job on a full-time basis, or at the very least take a moment to recognize how much WSU’s improbable success has meant to a lifetime assistant coach eager to prove himself as the head man in charge. Instead, keeping true to his approach this entire season, Brown is only interested in talking about anybody other than himself.
“I’m just so excited for these kids with all that they’ve went through,” said Brown, who has all but locked up the AAC Coach of the Year award. “And I’m so happy for the fans, and I’m also happy for the players that they’re getting this attention now.”
While Brown is too modest to talk about his accomplishments, the coaching job he has done this season for WSU was universally praised following the win over Houston. Almost every member of the national media has called for WSU to remove the interim tag and give Brown the job permanently.
Brown, who became an assistant coach at WSU in 2014, also has the backing of many prominent former players, including notable alumni such as Fred VanVleet and Ron Baker. Even former Shockers who didn’t play under Brown have given him the stamp of approval.
It was also a testament to how well-liked and well-respected Brown is by current players that WSU had zero transfers following Gregg Marshall’s resignation. Every one of the players came to Wichita to play for Marshall, but they stayed because they believed in Brown. It’s been obvious by the way they celebrate with their coach after games.
“They need to give him the job,” said WSU leading scorer Tyson Etienne. “We’ve had a lot of stuff going on within our program this year and the way we’ve handled it has been something really good and something really remarkable. And not just IB, our entire coaching staff has done a great job of banding us together and leading us. IB has done an amazing job and I believe he’s going to get the job. I hope he does. I’m rocking with him.”
Keeping their jobs may have felt like a longshot to start the season, but the current coaching staff has been emboldened by their success. WSU is starting to recruit again and assistants Lou Gudino, Tyson Waterman and Billy Kennedy, as well as player development coach Nick Jones and director of operations Dominic Okon have viewed this season as a chance to prove themselves.
Most importantly, Brown and his staff have made an impression on the man who will ultimately make the recommendation to interim university president Rick Muma on who the next WSU men’s basketball coach will be.
“We decided before the start of the year we wanted to give Isaac a full evaluation and give him the opportunity to show his ability as a head coach,” WSU athletic director Darron Boatright said. “What this season has done is eliminated the ability for people to say he has no head coaching experience. Well, he not only has head coaching experience now, but a very unique experience dealing with factors no one has ever dealt with before.
“Isaac and all of the coaching staff have done a fantastic job and Isaac is doing everything he needs to and focusing on the team and the next game. He’s eliminated as many distractions as he can. I’m very happy with the results.”
But fans who hoped Boatright would have removed the interim tag on Brown’s title by now have been disappointed. Consistent with what he has previously told The Eagle, Boatright told The Eagle on Thursday that WSU will “move as quickly as possible without being in a hurry.”
“I’m just trying to stay consistent with what I’ve said all along and remove emotions from it,” Boatright said. “I don’t think it’s fair for any coach to say, ‘This was a big win, so this is the result of that’ or ‘This was a tough loss, so this is the result of that.’
“You want to do a full evaluation and look at everything you can. Isaac is the guy that we’re working with everyday right now. If we need to go through a full coaching search, we will. If we don’t, we won’t.”
Brown has always been well-liked by players because he was a former star player himself and can relate to players on that level. He has been respected for his coaching chops and known to put together a diligent scouting report. Still, those qualities don’t always translate to success when an assistant coach slides over 12 inches to the first chair on the bench.
This “X” factor can be tough to define, but whatever “it” is, Brown has it.
“I think the most impressive thing about what he has done is how he’s kept this program together,” Waterman said. “Just the relationships he’s built with these young men to get them to trust him. Even myself, as a grown man, I was a little discouraged after all of that went down before the season. We had to deal with so many things that people don’t even know about, but IB kept everyone focused.
“There were so many concerns coming into this season, but that’s what IB does so well. He pays attention to these young men and he’s able to reach them and gain their trust and get them to play for them the way he does. The guy is like a magnet. People just love IB, myself included. It’s an amazing thing.”
What the players say they love about Brown is how genuine he is. There is a charm to Brown, whether it’s from his Southern drawl or benevolent personality, and he’s an easy person to like. In a testament to his low maintenance personality, Brown is working out of the WSU men’s basketball conference room instead of the head coach’s office at Koch Arena. He treats his players, from Etienne, the star player, to Jaden Seymour and Chaunce Jenkins, freshmen who aren’t in the rotation, the same way. He doesn’t sugar-coat criticism during film sessions, practices or games, but he also doesn’t deliver it in a demeaning way.
That’s why the players put their full trust in him at the beginning of the season.
“When I first got this job, we told the kids, ‘You guys have to trust us. We’re going to give you 110% every day. We can’t let anybody in our circle. Just trust us,’” Brown said. “We started slow, but we never thought we had a bad basketball team. We didn’t make any excuses and those guys kept battling and kept getting better and they kept believing. We trust them and they trust us.”
WSU has won 12 of its past 14 games, but it hasn’t done so without flaws. The team’s defensive rebounding, annually a source of pride for the program, has plummeted to one of the worst rates in the country. WSU has also made it a habit to play in close games, sometimes making victories harder.
Being a first-time coach, Brown will also naturally face questions about if he can have sustained success — and recruit at a high-enough level to compete in the American without Marshall’s name recognition. Those are legitimate questions that Boatright will have to parse.
But Brown has answered just about every possible question he could have with his work this season. The Shockers may not earn many style points, but they have simply won with Brown. He has shown his ability to make in-game adjustments and be a calming presence on the sideline, like when WSU trailed Houston by 12 points in the first half and rallied for its signature win. Under Brown’s guidance, the Shockers are 9-1 in two-possession games and have snapped long losing streaks to Houston and Cincinnati this season.
“He was so composed during the Houston game,” Waterman said. “He just kept telling them, ‘It’s a game of runs. They made their run, now we’re going to make our run.’ I think because he was so calm, that calmed our guys down and kept them believing.”
For the past 19 years, Brown has toiled away in relative anonymity as an assistant coach. He’s still adjusting to life in the spotlight, as the Houston win has made his coaching job in Wichita the talk of several national outlets.
But Brown didn’t get into coaching for the fame or the money, which explains why he didn’t haggle with WSU for a new contract before the start of the season. Because his appointment happened so close to the start of the season, Brown, in another selfless act, wanted to focus on the team rather than his contract. He is still working under the previous contract that paid him $210,000, not even the highest on the staff, as an assistant coach.
That will be rectified following this season, Boatright told The Eagle. The athletic director said he has spoken with Brown and the two have verbally agreed on an increased amount of compensation that will be finalized after this season.
There is growing support that many will want that amount to be included in Brown’s next contract with WSU as its permanent head coach. Even as the voices of support become louder and louder, Brown isn’t willing to talk about his future with the Shockers yet.
“I’m excited about the opportunity, but I try to stay away from listening to all of the voices talking about the head job,” Brown told Stadium’s Jeff Goodman this week. “I feel like that would take away from the team. It was all about the kids, making sure they were prepared. I just wanted to do something great for them. To make sure they were organized, to make sure they were ready to play games. I didn’t want to focus on myself whether I got the job or not, it’s really just all about the kids.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2021 at 7:39 AM.
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