Q&A: Getting to know Dan Geriot

Dan Geriot expanded on his vision for what he hopes Iona will become in his first year as head coach. (Photo by Iona Athletics)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Dan Geriot has been the head coach at Iona for six months now, but the enthusiasm with which the Gaels’ new leader handles his new capacity can make it seem like this is either his first day, or his 20th year.

Geriot, hired in March to replace Tobin Anderson in a decision that sent shockwaves through the college basketball community given Anderson was only given the reins for two years, promised to bring a forward-thinking and innovative approach to a longstanding winner in New Rochelle. The former University of Richmond forward’s pedigree as an assistant coach in the NBA for the past decade signifies a changing of the guard in college basketball, where programs are starting to treat professional experience with greater value in recent coaching cycles.

At only 37 years old, Geriot is the youngest head coach in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, and his youthful exuberance was on full display Tuesday when I had the privilege to sit down with him for the first time at the MAAC’s preseason basketball tipoff event. To help Iona fans get to know Geriot and what he will bring to the program leading up to the Gaels’ November 7 opener against Hofstra, I will transcribe the conversation into a detailed Q&A below:

Jaden Daly: First things first, Dan: Welcome to the MAAC, welcome to college coaching. The first thing I want to ask you is, how different is this landscape from the NBA?

Dan Geriot: Yeah, thanks, Jaden. Appreciate it, man. I’m excited to be back, really excited to be in the MAAC. The biggest difference, I think, is just probably the size of the players, that’s my biggest thing. Everything else has kind of been foundationally the same. We’re instilling the same habits, the same work ethic, same environments, same foundation that we were trying to do in the NBA. To me, it’s just the size of the players, which I’ve adapted to pretty well, and I’m excited to get started.

JD: You mentioned in your press conference that you wanted to implement a new approach, a new way of forward thinking. When someone of your background comes into a college landscape where there’s not a distinct resume on paper in terms of wins and losses on that side, but among the names you’ve worked with: You’ve worked with LeBron (James), you’ve worked with Kyrie Irving, you’ve worked with Zion (Williamson). How much have you seen that resonate with recruits, and how much have you been able to get them to buy into the vision that you’re trying to execute here at Iona?

DG: Yeah, I think that’s been a critical bridge for my lack of resume, I would say, with a head coaching record and things like that. I think in the NBA, and the reason I think at Iona, we’re so forward-thinking, is because I’ve bought into their vision of what the university’s going to look like, and that’s the good part that we get to emulate with the basketball program. I think the guys I’ve worked with and the development of the players that I’ve been able to be close with and build relationships with in the NBA definitely gives us, in a sense, a different look in recruiting because guys are signing up for something a bit different, and that’s what we love about the job and the program at Iona. It is shifting, it is a little different mentally to say yes to Iona, and then specifically with the expectations and the standards of our basketball program you also have to sign up for. You’re going to be in it for the standard of excellence. There’s a lot of tournament appearances. One of the reasons I said yes to the job was I lost up here when I was at Richmond in double overtime, and I knew right away (Iona) was a rich basketball tradition and program. That’s why I love that it’s kind of like two-pronged for us. We have this tradition and history, and then we have the forward-thinking ideas that we’re able to kind of emulate in our basketball program and hopefully be a good reference point for our university.

JD: You talked about Richmond and playing for a thinking man’s coach and a thinking man’s program like Chris (Mooney). How much of an influence was he on you as a player before you even went down this path, and how much more of an influence has he become in your own coaching career?

DG: I love how you phrased that! It was very thought-provoking to play for him, I would agree with that (laughs)! I mean, his influence is instrumental. He’s from Northeast Philly, I’m from the Philadelphia area. He’ll remind me of that every once in a while, but I think the biggest thing for me was he changed my life vision-wise. When I said yes to him and committed to his first big recruiting class — he had one recruit, Ryan Butler, that came in when he took the job, but as high school seniors, we were his first big recruiting class — I’ll never forget, he said to me, “I’m gonna get you basically out of Philly to Richmond, and then we’re gonna show you the world.” And he did that. And as a 17-year-old at the time, 18-year-old when I got there, the man that he really made me and made me think about who I was pretty consistently as a human really, really affected myself, but also some of my teammates. We have a lot of guys in the coaching ranks as it is, and I think we can’t say enough kind words and positive words about Chris Mooney and what he’s done. I think we’re all very envious that he’s still doing it at the same school, and that’s something we’re all looking forward to.

JD: Now you do have one incumbent player in the program in Luke (Jungers). How much did you lean on him, if at all, to learn the school and the territory, and how much did he help ease your transition the first few weeks over the summer?

DG: Yeah, a lot. I think the biggest thing with Luke was getting his feedback loop of Iona, what his experience was, what he went through. Trying to build trust is hard in life, in general, but to do it quickly is even harder. So really, trying to sit down and break bread with him, trying to understand where he’s coming from, learning his parents, learning what their experience had been at Iona was critical for me because you know, I’m selling a basketball vision in recruiting in the spring, and I don’t 100 percent know what the empathy of going to school at Iona is, and that was critical for Luke and I. I really appreciated him believing in what we were doing basketball-wise, and then for him to help us with the landscape of being a student-athlete at Iona.

JD: And by extension, how much did Pat Wallace help out, with him having been on staff with Tobin last year?

DG: Oh, immensely. Patrick Wallace has been — I always say it, I say it all the time at Iona: If he wasn’t with me, I don’t know where I’d be — you know what I mean? I don’t know what this team would look like, I don’t know what this program would look like or feel like. I think (general manager) Craig Moore and myself have kind of done a job of feeling out the university and seeing what’s going on, and Patrick has been a huge piece of that going forward, and then I just believe his own coaching presence has been immense. He sees our basketball vision, he feels where we’re headed with the people we’re recruiting and the people that at Iona, so I think for him to start kind of building those bridges and connecting the dots for us was crucial.

JD: You hit the ground running in the portal. What can you say about some of the guys you’ve brought in, what they bring to the table, how much we should see from them and how much they’ll have their numbers called early?

DG: I just think we’re very skilled. We have multiple decision makers, and that’s, to me, what we were trying to build roster-wise in a lot of the places I was, NBA-wise and before at Campbell and Princeton. So I like the way we’ve built the roster. I don’t think we kind of sold ourselves to anything in particular, I think we’re very versatile defensively and we’re very versatile offensively. I think you’ll see a lot of different lineups early on, a lot of different styles of play even, in a sense, specifically with certain lineups. We’re very data-driven. The analytical approach is big, I don’t want to publicize that a ton, but I think we’re very mindful of what that looks like, the efficiency we’re playing at and the process of how we’re playing. I think that’ll be big for us. In the portal, we really went after more of the guys that can dribble and pass. Shooting was a priority and we got what we needed, I think, in the shooting department, but the dribbling and the passing has really, in a sense, blossomed because our team can have multiple decision makers now, which is important.

JD: How much more has the analytical concept really taken root in this game and how much has it helped you evaluate guys as well? I spoke to Kevin Hovde at Columbia when he was at the Final Four with Florida, and he gave me a little bit of a background as to how he, Todd (Golden) and Kyle (Smith) went about it. How do you guys go about it?

DG: You know Hovde was the best man at my wedding, right (laughs)? We talk a good amount, we were bunk mates at Richmond, so we tie it together. We try and evaluate a little differently in the portal, a little differently in high school recruiting. We think about it in a sense of how you build it with certain parts, and I know I’m being a little vague, but with certain parts because you’ve gotta know the shooting, the assist rate, the turnover rate, the defensive rebounding rate. You have to kind of mix that all in together so that you end up making a team that we believe is depthful and then super versatile. That’s kind of how we saw it. O-rating and usage is great, and we really dive into that, obviously I think that’s the foundational approach of the portal and of high school recruiting, but the next piece is diving into that profile of player analytically and how that kind of fits with what you’re going for. I think that’s what we did when we built the team. Once we started getting certain commitments, it started to shift in a sense of not fit over talent, but more like, where does that talent fit for what we’re after analytically and big-picture wise?

JD: Not to single anybody out, but has there been one or two, or three players that have maybe exceeded expectations and stood out over the summer?

DG: Yeah, I think the biggest one that has exceeded expectations has probably been Lamin Sabally. He’s just a really different decision maker than we thought, that’s really the best way I can put it. His data spoke volumes and I’d like to say that he’s backed up the data, so he’s been great. He’s definitely had an above expected summer and fall for himself. I think our guards — Denver Anglin, CJ Anthony, Keshawn Williams — they’ve all come in and are playing a role. Keshawn is probably the closest thing to what he’s seen before, but Denver and CJ, it’s exciting to see them kind of take these jumps as a lead guard and understand what we’re after rhythm-wise, timing-wise. I think that’s been great for us and I’m excited about them as well.

JD: What can we expect from this team on the court? How much of a Princeton-Richmond hybrid will we see, or how much more versatile will the offense be?

DG: Yeah, I think if you watch the NBA in a detailed form, you know the Golden States, the Bostons, the Denvers of the world, they’re really running a lot of the split cuts and they don’t start the offense the same way we did at Richmond and Princeton, but they get to it a little bit differently. I think you’ll see that a good amount. We have forwards that are pretty good decision makers, pretty good passers, so we’ll see a good amount of that with the off-ball movement and the cutting schemes. And then you’ll see us play in the pick-and-roll settings and letting our guards play with space, I think you’ll see the hybrid of what that looks like. That’ll be our play style. We’re very five-out based and then we get to a four-out, one-in, so I think you’ll see that rhythm and hopefully, that harmony on offense. And then on defense, I think you’re gonna see a lot of versatile, tough dudes. I really believe that. We’re very driven on the defensive rebounding glass, we’re hyper-focused about that data and that analysis of how we’re doing there. We feel pretty comfortable that if we’re a pretty good defensive rebounding team, we’re gonna be a good team.

JD: Overall, for an Iona fan that may have lost faith in the program after how the last couple of years went: Sell that skeptical fan on what this group can become.

DG: Yeah, I think it’s twofold. One, we’re open! Come see practice, we’re open all the time. Come see practice, hit up our staff, understand that you can come in and this is your program as well, so come see it. I understand the skepticism at times in what we have done the past couple of years, but that’s why I think it’s great that our doors are open. Come meet us, come feel us, come understand us. And then the other piece is I think you’re gonna enjoy, in a sense, the style, the depth and the players. You’re gonna love the people that we brought in, you’re gonna love the families that we brought in. I think the mindfulness, to me, is just be open. Come see what we’re doing, meet our guys, understand our people and I think that skepticism will go away pretty quickly.