Before Eddie Jordan took the podium for his introductory press conference Tuesday afternoon at Rutgers, it was clear the program’s remaining players were in his corner.
The nine student-athletes sat front row, all wearing red Rutgers gear, as Jordan was introduced as their next coach at “The Barn” on Rutgers’ New Brunswick campus.
Jordan, a Rutgers alum in its glory days — he was on the 1975-76 Final Four team — met with each of them, two at a time, last week after agreeing in principle to replace Mike Rice, fired April 3 after video was released of him abusing players. Jordan didn’t try to sell them on his own merits. Instead, their new coach impressed the players with his knowledge of them. And in each instance, he said, “if you’re in, you’re in; if you’re out, you’re out,” but he stressed they needed to fully invested if they wanted to remain at the school.
They all decided to come back — led by star sophomore guard Myles Mack, sophomore forward Kadeem Jack and junior forward Wally Judge.
“With a guy like that, he has a lot of [professional] ties, he knows how to coach obviously,” Jack, a Queens product, said. “It made my decision a lot easier to stay here.”
Said Mack: “He’s a calming influence. He’s talking to us about the times he was here, how everybody doubted them, how we can do the same thing if we play together and just be fundamental.”
Since Rice’s dismissal, five players had asked for and received their release from their scholarships. But on Tuesday, one of them — wing Malick Kone — was at the press conference, and all signs point to his return. Junior wing Mike Poole committed to Iona, but Jordan is working on sophomore guards Jerome Seagears and Eli Carter, the team’s leading scorer.
A former NBA head coach with the Kings, 76ers and Wizards, Jordan is hitting the ground running. Tuesday night, he visited top New York City senior guard Jon Severe of Christ the King, who will pick a school on Wednesday, and he plans to attend a few AAU showcases this weekend to scout prospective talent.
Jordan has retained assistant coaches Van Macon and David Cox, who was serving as the head coach on an interim basis, to aid in his recruiting efforts. The duo’s presence has helped make sure the cupboard isn’t completely barren for Jordan. They played a role in the program’s current players staying put.
“Those guys went through the things we went through with us,” Judge said. “They’ve been here for us. Him keeping them around is a great thing.”
The players resisted comparing Jordan to the fiery Rice, but the differences are glaring. When Jordan took to the podium, his voice cracked from his joy of landing the job. He likes to speak softly in the huddle, to force the entire team to gather closer together, and he doesn’t curse, a habit he picked up years ago.
“The way he coaches, he talks to you more than he yells,” Mack said. “I really haven’t heard him yell yet. He comes up to you and tells you what you did wrong, instead of screaming at you.”