Coaching Career of B.J. Hill: Something out of Nothing, Hopefully (CH2K8)

[beast10]

B.J. Hill Speaks to Press Regarding Kendall Jenkins

5/5/2016

Greeley, Colo - Kendall Jenkins was big for Northern Colorado but with a snap of the finger, he's gone and off to Oregon. The Bears here in Greeley are possibly back to the dark ages, that is unless B.J. Hill can make something out of nothing.

Hill took over the head coaching duties following the 2009-2010 season when Tad Boyle coached the team to a 25-8 record but still fell short with no invitation to the big dance. From there B.J. Hill took the reigns of this program and helped them finish with a beyond winning record at 21-11, this squad wound up making it to the tournament and would go on to make a run to the second round before losing to #2 San Diego.

After the this promising campaign, Hill had many of those players from that roster graduate... Giving him a new look team that struggled in the 11-12 season, going 9-19 before another losing record of 13-18 the next year,

Northern Colorado finally seemed to have hope revived when they went 18-14 during the 2013-14 season a few years back. Hill rejoiced knowing a lot of his players would be returning but they'd still downgrade and end up with another poor 11-15 record.

This next season gets back to the main point of this article, B.J. Hill recruited Kendall Jenkins, a small forward out of North Las Vegas as a two/three star recruit [2 ESPN, 3 Rivals]. Jenkins would forcefully take over this team and lead them to a 16-14 record while retaining the Big Sky post-season championship. With an automatic invitation to the NCAA Tournament, they would take a loss in the first round against #2 seeded Oklahoma.

Jenkins as an individual won a spot on the Freshman All-American team as well as a handful of awards in the Big Sky after averaging a whooping 18.9 PPG as a true freshman ... The campus exploded when it was announced Kendall wouldn't be returning, not for the NBA but to attend another university, Oregon that is.

Today Coach Hill spoke to the media about his plans and projection for his team next season.

The first reporter opened the press conference asking him how he felt about the transfer.

B.J. responded with, "It's pretty big, pretty big," he repeated. "Kendall was a big time player who gave this team a lot of fulfillment in voids. He was one of the most exciting players this school had seen since Mike Higgins back in the eighty's, if you ask me, the sky was the limit for Kendall here at North Colorado. Sucks to see him leave but we'll get over it."

Another asked him how they'd recover from the lost.

"We still have good players overall. Tevin's still around, Cody is, we've got Jordan, Drew... I'm expecting big things out of Branduinn and our freshman Brad... We've still got a shot at being an exceptional team, we'll just need to revert to team ball instead of heroic which we depended on last season.

Next question was how he felt the team would do.

"We have a fair shot at a winning record, it all depends on how our returning players will work with the newcomers. From what I hear, the Big Sky is expected to be a weak conference this season... We can feed off that and simply play better than the competition."

Well, let's make something out of nothing, hopefully!

[beast10]

B.J. HILL COACHING STATS

Real Life

2010-2011 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 21-11 (Lost Second Round, #2 San Diego State)

2011-2012 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 9-19

2012-2013 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 13-18

2013-2014 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 18-14

With Me in Control

2014-2015 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 11-15

2015-2016 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 16-14 (Lost First Round in NCAA, #2 Oklahoma)

2016-2017 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 13-15

2017-2018 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 21-9 (Lost Second Round in NIT, Ohio)

2018-2019 | Big Sky - Northern Colorado // 27-5 (Lost First Round in NCAA, #11 Texas Tech)

[beast10]

B.J. HILL COACHING RESUME

Career Record (major schools): 9 Years, 149-120
School: Northern Colorado (149-120)

Conference Post Season Champion: 3 Time
Regular Season Champion: 2 Time

NCAA Tournament Bids: 3 (0-3)
0 Sweet Sixteens
0 Elite Eights,
0 Final Fours
0 Championships

National Honors

Coach of the Year

National Players of the Year

All-American Players

Freshman All-Americans
(14-15) Kendall Jenkins

Pro Prospects
(16-17) Kendall Jenkins (Transferred)

Conference Honors

Conference Coach of the Year
(18-19) Northern Colorado - Record: 27-5

Conference Champion
(17-18) Northern Colorado (Big Sky) - Record: 21-9
(18-19) Northern Colorado (Big Sky) - Record: 27-5

Conference Player of the Year
(15-16) Kendall Jenkins

Conference Freshman of the Year
(15-16) Kendall Jenkins
(18-19) Kris Wells

All-Conference Players
1st Team
(15-16) Kendall Jenkins
(15-16) Brandan Keane
(18-19) Branford Jones

2nd Team
(14-15) D. Barden
(17-18) Jordan Wilson
(17-18) Branford Jones

All-Conference Freshman
(14-15) Kendall Jenkins
(15-16) Brad Boone
(15-16) Torin Ndoye
(16-17) Clement Garner
(18-19) Kris Wells

[beast10]

Decided to start this because despite Kendall leaving, i'm still in control of the North Colorado. I will no longer be playing the games but I'll handle recruiting, rotations, etc as I try to help Kendall regret leaving Greeley.

You can also post now..

[beast10]

MAY 10TH, 2016
SEASON PREVIEW

Northern Colorado returns a total of nine players; three of them with starting experience. They’re key player this season will need to be Tevin Svihovec who is in the group of the team’s seniors that includes Cody McDavis and Greg Tucker.

The team loses a total of four seniors; Brendan Keane, Tim Huskisson, Dominique Lee, Corey Spence, and transfer Kendall Jenkins. Both Keane and Jenkins won a spot on the All-Conference team while Tim Huskisson started at shooting guard and averaged 10.1 points. Dominque Lee and Corey Spence both added needed depth on the bench and Lee himself started a couple games while Kendall was down with an injury and stepped up to lead the team with a pair of wins.

Now, Tevin (72 OVR, 80 3PT) returns as the team’s leading scorer after averaging 10.2 last season, unfortunately he suffered from a broken finger injury, Coach Hill says he’s a ‘tough kid’, so when he played through the injury and accepted a bench role Hill wasn’t surpised. The guard from Arlington, Texas saw his shooting numbers fall to 35.7% overall and 30.6% from three which had been his strength since high school but ultimately hit some big shots throughout the sketch.

Cody McDavis will also be a key to Northern Colorado’s success. At 6’8, McDavis played power forward while starting the season as only a role player before working his way into the starting lineup in the mid-season. Coach Hill says it was always hard to take Cody off the floor because he hustled harder than anyone he’d ever seen… He averaged 5.8 rebounds and 1.7 steals with highs at 14 rebounds and 7 steals. McDavis was possibly the biggest player in the conference championship game against Northern Arizona where he had 20 points and 6 steals to help recover the momentum for the team.

Outside these two senior the roster is sketchy… They’ve got Jordan Wilson (who at 5’7 was very inconsistent last season, shooting 35% and just under 29% from three. B.J. Hill was able to grab Brad Boone during the off-season, Boone is a three star recruit out of Oxnard, California who specializes in defense more than anything (72 DAWR, 76 STL, 69 OVR).

If this squad would like to see their win numbers higher than the loss colum they’ll need other great production from players like Drew Bender (OVR 66, 75 3PT), Greg Tucker (OVR 65, PASS 72), Chase Drabyn (OVR 56, OREB 74), former walk-on Branduinn Skeeter (47 OVR, 71 CLOSE, he plays a lot better than his OVR, idk about simulation).

It won’t help that Northern Colorado will be playing a tough schedule with games… They open their season against ranked Kansas and will later on see teams such as Gonzaga, Arizona State, UCLA, and last year’s champs Louisville.

Let’s see how they hold up.

[pfeifere1]

Great layout and a fun team to start with! Good luck as this moves along, Beast!

[beast10]

Quote: Originally Posted by pfeifere1

Great layout and a fun team to start with! Good luck as this moves along, Beast!

Thanks pf, we might struggle at the beginning but hopefully I'll be able to build them up!

Also I'd like to also mention to any readers that I will (already have) simmed this season and accidentally saved so the this first season won't be in too much depth... Might just do a recap similar to Deuce's dynasty

[beast10]

APRIL 10TH, 2017
SEASON RECAP

“It was overall a decent season, you can’t take that away from us,” B.J. Hill says. “We had a tough schedule to start things out… We had a good share against power conference teams and we lost all of them. It seemed like a bad thing but if you looked at it in a different perspective it only got us more ready to take on the conference opponents and we finished solid. This team has potential to be very good next season… We’re going to lose Tevin, Greg, and Cody, all three of them had big seasons this year but we’ve got a chance to pick things up next season and like I said be very good.”

The Northern Colorado Bears finished the season with an overall record of 13-15 after the departure of Kendall Jenkins. The fan base was happy with they got considering they expected way worst when their team kicked off the season off with a horrid 1-7 record. Their only win in the first six weeks came in a home game against IUPUI where they won 73-70 in the final seconds.

They took hard losses to Kansas, UCLA, Louisville, Arizona State, even UC Riverside and San Diego. All those losses were over a margin gap of 15 points. Just disappointing to say the least.

When B.J. Hill was asked upon why he chose such a tough schedule he admitted to saying it was to lure Kendall Jenkins into sticking around for this season. That attempt failed and Hill’s team was forced with the unexpected weight thrown on their shoulders.

But don’t worry, following the 58-102 loss to reigning NCAA Champs Louisville, Northern Colorado opened up its conference schedule with a win at Montana State to solidify a 2-7 record as they’d took on Idaho State the following week. On a side note, the Idaho State Bengals continued with their label as amongst one of the worst men’s division one basketball teams in the nation after winning just two games last season…

Anyways, the Bears got the dub in their second straight road game at Idaho State. They’d then move into another struggle as they lost three straight games against Sacramento State, Eastern Washington, and Weber State. Similar to the non-conference schedule, they lost all these games by big numbers.

Speaking of non-conference, the Bears got a visit from a struggling Savannah State team following Weber State; they’d go on to win this game 63-57 before falling at home to Portland State a few days later.

That’s when things started to open up for the Bears. Throughout a ten game stretch they were able to finish 8-2 as they slowly approached the conference tournament. Before that’d come around they’d wrap up the regular season on senior night against the same team they faced last year during the event; Montana. The Grizzlies also happened to be the best team in the conference this time around so the celebration for the three seniors expectedly ended with a 71-57 loss. Tevin Svihovec and Cody McDavis notably led the team in scoring on their special night, Tevin had 16 and Cody recorded 11…

Next stop was conference tournament. This time around last year the Bears were battling with the conference’s best team by far, Northern Arizona, in the championship round… With the loss of Quinton Upshur, this Northern Arizona team came in with a 10-17 record and the Bears had no issues with taking them out in the first round, the score was 81-52 and was routed by Greg Tucker and Stefon Dearman’s [a former walk-on] heroic bench performances. The two combined for 25 points and Dearman in particular hit 10 points [4-4 FG, 2-2 3PT] in a very limited 9 minute night.

Hooray, the Bears moved into the semi-finals and were put up against Weber State; the same Weber State team that smacked them two times in the regular season with the biggest win being 86-60. This time around the Bears were able to stick with the Tigers but still fell in a 72-78 loss. With that, we said goodbye to the Bears for the 16-17 season… Tevin Svihovec went out with style, 22 points, 7-15 shooting with 5 threes.

Still, goodbye.

Eastern Washington, who got blown out by Northern Colorado last year in this tournament, beat Weber state in the championship to earn themselves the automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament where they were awarded (not really) with a 16 seed. Their opponent ended up as Louisville and they would unsurprisingly fall 100-70 in the first round. Louisville would go on to win the title for the second consecutive year as Terry Rozier ended his final year of eligibility at Louisville.

Now it was time to welcome in the off-season… The off-season that would change the way people viewed the Big Sky’s Northern Colorado team. Don’t ask me how, but despite the 13-15 finish, B.J. Hill brought in a helluva recruiting class.

First up was Clement Garner, the 38th yes the 38th best player in the nation according to ESPN. Coming out of the big city of Los Angeles, Clement decided to commit to NORTHERN COLORADO! I don’t know why, but he did, I suspected something fishy… Clement had a good outing in the EYBL [ABL] and averaged just under 10 points on a stacked Los Angeles Sparx squad. Clement also made a good name for himself as a passer with 4.5 assists per game…

The list went on.

Tyler Manilow out of California’s Chula Vista was next… Despite being a four star recruit; this guard missed out on the ESPN Top 100. He didn’t play in the EYBL which really hurt his stock considering he played small ball at a 1A school in Chula Vista. Manilow considered schools like Oregon State, Arizona State, San Diego but eventually he was left for dead, no offers besides Northern Colorado who had been chasing him since the season begun.

Now we got back to normal, B.J. Hill snagged an in-state 6’7 power forward out of Colorado Springs. Issac Njoya, very unique name, just as unique as his game… The three-star recruit played for the Cold Force over the summer and averaged spectacular numbers on the defensive end, 3.1 blocks, and 2.3 steals, that gets your attention surely. On offense however, Isaac isn’t much, being undersized he’s been forced to take on the belief that he’ll most likely play the 3 at the college level, therefor Isaac tried to display a different outlook in the EYBL only to shoot 31% from the field but an exceptional 34% from three. Being a small school, Njoya is just about at the average size for power forwards in the Big Sky so he’ll hopefully have the opportunity to start playing like himself once again.

And that’s it for this year’s edition… It’ll be interesting to see how this team will do in their next journey.

Stay tuned – the Insider
.