John Gallagher’s second chance leads him to Manhattan program whose tradition he hopes to uphold

An NCAA Tournament coach two years ago at Hartford, John Gallagher returns to college basketball after a year away, as former Hawks coach now takes over at Manhattan. (Photo by Getty Images)

At this time a year ago, John Gallagher had the proverbial rug pulled out from under him.

Fresh off leading the University of Hartford to its first-ever NCAA Tournament at the Division I level the previous season, the man who built the Hawks into a blue-collar outfit that came to be known as the neighborhood team was caught between a rock and a hard place. University president Gregory Woodward blindsided the athletic department by announcing Hartford would de-emphasize its athletic programs for a move to Division III, which would take effect in 2023. After numerous other cuts in the department, including the removal of the Hawks’ athletic training staff, Gallagher announced his resignation last November, hours before Hartford tipped off its final campaign in Division I, competing as an independent.

It was widely assumed in most circles within the coaching industry that Gallagher would get back in the game in some capacity during the 2023-24 season. However, his destination came as somewhat of a surprise when Manhattan College tabbed him as the Jaspers’ new head coach five months ago, as interim head coach RaShawn Stores had proven himself worthy of being named the full-time leader after Steve Masiello was shockingly and unfairly dismissed in October. Nonetheless, Gallagher is eager to get back on the horse after a year of reflection.

“I interviewed for a couple jobs out there,” Gallagher admitted. “It wasn’t a secret (that) I was trying to find something. But the more I talked to Manhattan, the history, the location, the league really attracted me. Maybe I’d never thought about it until I started talking to everybody, but it became pretty obvious that this was just a fit for both sides. I think if everybody’s on the same page, you can have great success.”

“There’s great opportunity. Every day, I’m grateful for it. Every day, there’s an opportunity. I always say now, the storms are here to teach you something. Don’t complain about them, embrace them.”

The 46-year-old has lived up to his words thus far, jumping headfirst into reconstructing a roster that, like most at the mid-major level, was ravaged by the transfer portal. Only three players from last year’s Jasper team — Logan Padgett, Raziel Hayun and walk-on Daniel Hackett — remained in Riverdale, forcing Gallagher to work swiftly and furiously in filling the ranks of the locker room. Even with the large influx of talent, he is steadfast in his conviction that he and his staff have assembled a competitive unit, but concedes that there is still much more to discover with regard to the nuances of Manhattan’s composition.  

“If you look at it in our city alone, St. John’s had to do it, Iona had to do it and we had to do it,” Gallagher said of having to start almost from scratch. “It’s actually going to become the norm when coaching changes happen, so everyone’s going to have to get used to it. At the same time, we put a roster together that, for the first year, I’m very happy about. I think our assistants did a great job, there was a lot of hard work, but at the same time, there’s a lot to be seen.”

“We have to get through preseason and then the season, how we’re going to play and the adjustments mid-year. Are we playing more 1-3-1 or are we playing more man? Are we playing more fast-paced? That’s all stuff that has to be seen through the competition, but from the roster itself, I’m happy.”

Logan Padgett (34) is one of three returning players in Manhattan roster this season. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

Padgett and Hayun, the two veterans on the roster, have been an integral part of the transition process, as has transfer Briggs McClain, a 6-foot-4 senior guard who played for Gallagher at Hartford and is thus familiar with the concepts and philosophy the coach is looking to instill. And of the seven newcomers that have officially been announced on the Manhattan roster, five of them are transfers with experience at the collegiate level that will prove to be invaluable in this season of retooling.

“I think any time you have guys that have worn the uniform, it helps,” Gallagher said. “I think Logan’s done a great job, Razi’s done a great job. (They’re) two very good leaders that really know that being a part of college basketball is about being a part of something bigger than yourself, and they’ve really embraced that. I always say, when you have an entitled team, you don’t win a lot of games. When you have a grateful team, you win games, and I think right now, we have a grateful group. And that’s because Logan and Razi have embodied that. (McClain) is indispensable. It’s one thing playing for me, it’s another thing learning our language. Briggs McClain speaks our language. When you’re in our spot, the quicker everybody learns our terminology, the easier offense becomes, the easier defense becomes. So he’s helped us immensely in the first seven, eight weeks.”

“Perry Cowan from Brown, he brings experience, a level of toughness. People that aren’t in college basketball every day don’t realize how good the Ivy League is. He’s played in big games, and that’s something we have to embrace. I look for him to play a big role this year. Seydou Traore is a freshman from the Bronx, local kid, 6-foot-8, shoots the three, rebounds at a high level. He could be one of the better four men I’ve ever recruited. He just has a level of versatility that I absolutely love. I have a transfer from Weber State, Daniel Rouzan, 6-foot-9, 250 pounds, big body. He’s skilled, uses both hands in the paint great, really is getting better every day. I love his size, and if I was guessing today, he’d probably be the starting five. My goal is for him to be a 10 and 8 guy, 12 and 8 guy. He brings us a physicality we’re going to need in MAAC play.”

The tight deadlines of the transfer portal in relation to the summer workout sessions teams are allowed makes time constraints perhaps the most difficult obstacle to overcome in recruiting. Nonetheless, Gallagher harped upon not taking any shortcuts in the selection of his players, highlighting the process he and his staff follow while also citing the versatility each newcomer brings to the table.

“We do a deep dive into everybody,” he revealed. “If you’re here and it’s a close call, I tell you it’s a close call. If you’re here and it’s not a close call, I feel really good about you. We’re a fully transparent program. You get your ass kicked if you live in the gray area, and as a young head coach, I probably did that a lot. We don’t live in the gray area. We’re fully up front and honest with everybody. There are no secrets, and the way you can really build culture is by being unapologetically honest.”

“If you’re looking at us, one of the big things on our roster is our depth. Brett Rumpel is one of those guys that could be my best cutter offensively that I’ve ever had. He’s really learned our offense and how important cutting is. If you can cut to score, you can get 10 points a game in our offense. He’s our best defender, he may be one of our most athletic guys, something that’s really needed in our system. Shaquil Bender is a junior college transfer from Fullerton College, he has two years of eligibility. He was a 47 percent 3-point shooter in junior college and he’s grown leaps and bounds in seven weeks. Great defender, great versatility, great size, great strength. Wes Robinson is a transfer from (Division II) Bloomfield, he has two years of eligibility and just keeps getting better and better. There’s certain things that if he does every time, he could be a really great shooter from three. Jaden Winston has been an unbelievable surprise. When we got him (from DeMatha Catholic), we had five or six coaches saying it was unbelievable. I didn’t know why we were getting those calls, but I do now. He’s a really talented player.”

Gallagher admitted his team’s style of play will be a work in progress this season, but highlighted some of the core tenets of his teams at Hartford that he will carry over to Manhattan as a framework for how he and his staff would prefer to operate. On offense, look for the Jaspers to take advantage of lapses in the opposition’s defense as early as possible, predicating itself on movement and paint touches. On defense, you can expect a commitment to not only guarding the 3-point line like a blanket, but also not surrendering open shots in the paint or committing fouls.

“Offensively, in the first seven seconds, we always say, ‘can we get any free money?’” Gallagher said, explaining his mindset with the ball in his team’s hands. “Is there free money out there? That means, has the defense slept on that possession? Every single time in the first seven seconds, we’re trying to see if there’s free money on the table. If there’s free money out there, we take it. A layup or an open three, we take it every time. If we don’t have anything in the first seven seconds, we want to make sure we’re getting ball reversal and paint touches. Ball reversal and paint touches lead to what we call the domino, bringing two (defenders) to the ball. We want to shoot standstill threes or layups, and we’ve added the 15-footer because I think the game’s changed to where you’ve got to make that to beat good defensive teams.”

“Defensively, we always talk about this: In my last two years, we had a team that was number one in the country in defending the three, and number eight in the country. That’s a stat a lot of people don’t talk about. How did we do it? Everything is about activity on the 3-point line. We’re not giving catch-and-shoot threes up, (it’s) not happening. We’re not giving layups up. The last thing is we don’t foul. Don’t foul, finish the play.”

A native of Broomall, Pennsylvania, just a half-hour outside Philadelphia’s Center City, Gallagher began his college basketball career playing for one of the city’s legendary coaches in Phil Martelli at Saint Joseph’s, and furthered his education in the game under one of Philly’s other native sons, former Lafayette coach Fran O’Hanlon. But while both men have had profound influences on Gallagher’s own career and ethos as a coach, he remains cognizant of the fact that in today’s game, and especially as he is a new coach replacing a homegrown leader, he needs to continue to be his own man.

“What I learned from Phil is that this is a family,” Gallagher said of Martelli. “This is all about love. I love my players, they’re a part of my family. We always say, if you come and play for me, you’re going to have two tables at your wedding. I would not be a good basketball coach today if it wasn’t for Franny O and his philosophy of how to view the game. He always said, when you coach the game like you’re watching it from the mezzanine level, when you’re on the floor and you can watch it from upstairs, that’s when you know you can coach offense.”

“As for me taking over, I reached out to the majority of coaches that have coached here in the past. I would like to say (Stores) did a phenomenal job. I watched all the tapes. He had great energy, he kept that group together. It’s a hard thing to do in the spot that he was in, and I have great respect for what he did. I’ve got great respect for Steve and the job he did. He won two championships, he did a phenomenal job. That group did a great job. I don’t care what happened in the past couple years, what he did was championship-level and he must be honored that way. But I am the caretaker of this program. I’m here to represent it in a first-class manner with great energy, and I have to be John Gallagher. I got in trouble early in my career when I tried to be other people. Some people might like it, some may hate it, but at the end of the day, I have to be me.”

As he has returned to the Division I landscape, Gallagher admitted it was harder to reinstall his team’s offense than he imagined upon taking the job. The difficulty has been a labor of love, though, and he and the Jaspers have silently begun to ignore the criticism and embark on their journey together.

“These first seven weeks, I didn’t realize how hard it was to put the offense back in,” he reiterated. “And Franny always used to say, if you’re not exhausted after coaching a practice in what we do, then you’re not running it right. I could tell you this: I’ve been exhausted after some of these practices, because every possession has to be evaluated if you’re teaching the game the right way. We had a track record the last five years of having good success through great adversity. I think we have sort of the playbook on it, so we don’t have a gray area. We do a great job of blocking out the noise. We’re doing it day-by-day, what we call stacking days together. And we have to stack great days every day.”

So how will Manhattan establish its identity in year one of its new regime? By not cutting corners, taking full accountability for whatever might go wrong, and only going upward from there.

“We’re just the team that loves to represent where we’re at,” Gallagher proclaimed, rehashing the neighborhood mentality of his past Hartford rosters. “It’s a great place to represent all the former players and coaches, and most importantly, the alums. We’re here to represent them in a first-class manner. We take no shortcuts building this program brick by brick. The foundation is so important, and you’ll always hear this from me: We never go back to the basics here. We talk about the basics every day. If we ever say we have to get back to the basics, we’ve lost our way.”

“Every day, we’re doing something fundamental in our program. I’ve really developed into that, I have the scars from Hartford to prove it, and I could tell you that this is a great mid-major job. The bones are here. I think what you’ll see from us is a high-energy program that plays for one another and makes sure it always plays for the front of the jersey, not the back.”