Kern: After years of struggles, Swarthmore hoops is flying high
THROUGH THE YEARS, many folks undoubtedly looked at Swarthmore basketball and asked, "Why?" Landry Kosmalski is someone who instead went "Why not?"
THROUGH THE YEARS, many folks undoubtedly looked at Swarthmore basketball and asked, "Why?" Landry Kosmalski is someone who instead went "Why not?"
The program has rarely done much of anything. And it's been around for over a century. Never won a Centennial Conference championship or been to the NCAA Division III tournament. Yet Kosmalski must've sensed something. Or maybe he just thought he needed a different challenge really bad.
Either way, when he became the Garnet coach five years ago, the team was coming off a three-win season under interim man Joe Culley, who'd taken over after an 0-6 start in 2011-12 for Lee Wimberly, who'd gone 184-417 in a quarter-century. But the 32nd coach in Swarthmore history was thinking only about the opportunity.
A four-year starter at Davidson, where he went to the NCAA tourney in 1998, he did two stints as an assistant with his alma mater (although he wasn't there for Steph Curry's Final Eight appearance in 2008). In between, he coached at a high school in Knoxville, Tenn., where the team improved by nine wins in his second season.
The Texas native interviewed here mostly because a son of Davidson's team doctor had played for Swarthmore when Wimberly resigned and told him about the opening.
"I just thought Swarthmore was a lot like Davidson," Kosmalski said. "A small, liberal-arts school that's not in a city but is close. It has a lot of the same values and academic rigors. So I was interested. Then I found out a little more on my own when I came up here. I can remember every year (at Davidson), someone would write that we shouldn't even have athletics. When we were going to the Final Eight. So I think there's always going to be some of that, no matter what."
He pointed to some schools with similar profiles that have been highly successful, such as Williams (won a national title in 2003, lost in finals in 2010 and '14) and Amherst (titles in 2007 and '13, semis in 2014 and '16). Or fellow Centennial schools Johns Hopkins and Dickinson, which made recent runs to the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight. And Ursinus got to a Final Four in 2008. Which means there are reasons to buy in, right?
"Some of the best players in the country are high academic kids," Kosmalski said. "They're out there. You just have to find them."
The Garnet won seven games his first season and eight the next. The 11 wins in 2014-15 was the first time Swarthmore reached double digits in nearly a decade. Last year, after being picked to finish seventh, it set a school record with 22 wins and lost in the title game to Neumann University. The previous mark was 17. It was the Garnet's first winning season in almost two decades.
The Garnet is 17-4 on this journey, in first place in the conference at 11-3, and has clinched a berth in the postseason conference tournament. The regular-season champion hosts the tourney. It's the first back-to-back winning seasons since 1968-70. On Wednesday night, Swarthmore hosts Ursinus (13-8, 10-4), which it beat by eight on the road on Dec. 7.
The Garnett was ranked as high as 15th, the first time ever in the Top 25, and currently is among the top point-getters in "others receiving votes."
Then again, Swarthmore was the preseason favorite, another first.
We should mention that they did win the Middle Atlantic States Collegiate Athletic South Division (which became the Middle Atlantic Conference) in 1950-51.
"I was looking at the positives," Kosmalski said. "We found kids with the right attitude and the right talent. We got lucky, because some of the guys we brought in early got a chance to play right away. And now they're our leaders, experienced veterans. They know what's expected.
"People ask how we handled those first couple of years. We just said it was really important to put our culture in place. If that cost us some wins, so be it. There were growing pains. But you have to set the right example. The kids who've been here have taken ownership . . . Now it's a different level. We're the favorite. It's just people's opinions, but we're the game teams are circling on the calendar. We used to be the one that got beat like a dog every time. So we've had to raise our level even more.
"The season's not over. You can start to feel good about yourself and a couple of weeks later, you're not feeling so good. After the way we started last year (10-1), I expected us to do (even) better . . . It's hard when you're trying to sell 3-22. I think recruits are taking us a little more seriously."
He has only three seniors. Only two of them play a lot. He's lost one starter for the season with an injury. Another missed some games after getting hurt. His top scorer is Cam Wiley (17.5, one of two averaging more than nine), a sophomore who had 40 points last season.
They've won five of their last six, are 10-1 on the road and 4-0 in overtime.
In one game, a starter had to come off the bench because he'd missed two practices for a doctoral program interview. So a freshman got his first start and finished with 17 rebounds, which was almost as many as their opponent's total.
It's all good, even if it isn't necessarly front-page news on a campus where the enrollment is just north of 1,500 and the educational possiblities are ranked among the nation's best.
"I think people take notice of us, but they're not holding any impromptu pep rallies," Kosmalski said. "One of the greatest things about being at Swarthmore is our kids are very smart and mature. Keeping our players focused hasn't been an issue. They've done that themselves. We haven't met our goals yet. I leave it up to them: 'What do you guys want?' "
Swarthmore's men's tennis team won four national titles between 1977 and '90. In the last decade, men's soccer and lacrosse have won ECAC regional titles. As has women's basketball, soccer and volleyball.
So . . .
"It's not like it can't be done," Kosmalski said. "Things can change. And people will notice. The progress feels good, but we don't talk about that a lot. Every day we talk about daily goals.
"We had our rough stretch (back-to-back losses in mid-January when players were missing), as we were figuring out new roles along the way. But we kind of got a little swagger back."
Imagine that.
@mikekerndn