Coach Lonergan Makes the Move to George Washington
Coach Mike Lonergan knows a good opportunity when he sees it. After six successful years at Vermont, the Maryland native is headed to George Washington. Moving from the America East Conference to the Atlantic 10 is certainly a step up, but this is not a situation where Coach Lonergan has a lot of rebuilding to do. The Colonials return four starters and a handful of role-players from a team that finished fourth in conference play a year ago. The expectations are immediately high and Coach Lonergan should be able to immediately make those expectations even higher over the coming years.
The story was pretty much the same after the 2004-2005 season. That is when Lonergan left his one year stint as an assistant to Gary Williams at Maryland for the head coaching job at Vermont. Replacing legendary Catamount coach Tom Brennan would not be easy, but Lonergan knew that this was a good program and a good team that he could win with. In six years he led the Catamounts to a first or second place conference finish four times and made four postseason trips. He managed to successfully replace the legend.
There is not really a legend to replace at George Washington, but this is still a program that is built for success. The Colonials have had a string of successful campaigns over the last couple of decades and have had plenty of players make it to the NBA. That is a pretty good recruiting tool that was not available at Vermont.
The better news for Lonergan is in the more short term. This team will be very good this season and they are not a group that the previous regime built for one successful season. Of course George Washington will lose some key players after the 2011-2012 campaign, but there are younger players who will be ready to step up. This is a group that has the tools to be a pretty good team for a few years even without Lonergan’s ability to recruit. The question then will be where Lonergan ends up next if he lives up to the potential of George Washington basketball.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview for this team
