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Now is the spring of our discontent, at least for the Princeton men’s basketball team.
The news that two assistant coaches — Associate Head Coach Brett MacConnell and Assistant Coach Lawrence Rowley — have been fired is certain to shake the world of Princeton men’s basketball and reverberate through the entire Ivy League.
The departure of MacConnell is particularly shocking given the central role he played in recruiting top-tier talent to Princeton over the past 12 years. The Princeton Athletic Department’s website credits MacConnell with recruiting some of the greatest players in the history of Princeton basketball, including NBA talent Tosan Evbuomwan ’23, who led Princeton to the Sweet 16 just two years ago.
Other notable MacConnell recruits include current star juniors Caden Pierce and Xaivian Lee, along with highly ranked former players such as Jaelin Lllewellyn ’22, Devin Cannady ’20, Myles Stephens ’19, and Amir Bell ’18.
MacConnell is so highly regarded in Ivy circles that his name has been floated for recent head coach vacancies at Penn and Columbia.
But how important is this development to the future of Princeton men’s basketball?
The departure of MacConnell and Rowley will have some impact in the near term. However, this development is overshadowed by bigger forces in the college basketball world that are detrimental to the Ivy League, such as the institution of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals.
In the short term, the sacking of MacConnell and Rowley reveals a troubling rupture in the program, the contours of which are not yet fully known.
What is known is that the Tigers, picked in the preseason to win the Ivy League, underperformed throughout the season, often falling behind by double-digits in the opening minutes of games. Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 seemed to be at a loss to correct the problem and vocalized frustration at multiple points in the season.
In a moment of candor after Princeton’s season-ending loss to Yale in the semifinals of the Ivy League Tournament, Henderson admitted he had mismanaged the amount of playing time he gave to Jacob Huggins, a sophomore forward who started the season strong and then inexplicably disappeared from the lineup.
“Got to blame the coach on that one,” Henderson told reporters on March 15, following Princeton’s loss to Yale. “You know, that’s on me. He was really helpful all season and [it was] my decision at certain times to not play him, [but] he was terrific when he did [play].”
Reflecting on his coaching for the season, Henderson provided a curt summary. “Yeah, [it] wasn’t my best year.”
Some may speculate that MacConnell and Rowley are fall guys for a season that failed to live up to expectations. But that explanation doesn’t make sense given that Princeton has had plenty of seasons that didn’t quite work out as planned in the past without heads rolling on the coaching staff.
Something deeper seems to be at work here.
A year ago, the Tigers managed to avoid the kind of roster churn that has been afflicting so many college basketball programs in recent years. After a shocking loss to Brown in the 2024 Ivy League tournament, Pierce and Lee could have easily left Princeton, as others did. Yet both players returned for their junior campaigns, as did Jack Scott, who initially transferred to William & Mary and then abruptly changed course and returned to Old Nassau.
Other Ivy programs were not as fortunate. Yale lost its best player, Danny Wolf, to the transfer portal, as did Penn with Tyler Perkins, the 2024 Ivy League Rookie of the Year. The year before, the Quakers lost Jordan Dingle, the 2023 Ivy League Player of the Year, to the portal. And earlier this week, another standout Penn player, Sam Brown, announced his intention to enter the portal, as did Cornell’s AK Okereke.
Thus, the turmoil now afflicting Princeton is, to some extent, endemic to the game of college basketball today, especially at the mid-major level.
In the long run, the biggest risk to the continued success of Princeton basketball isn’t the sudden departure of two assistant coaches. The real issue is whether Princeton and every other Ivy program can continue to compete in a Division I landscape increasingly divided among the haves and have nots.
The advent of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, direct player payments, and the transfer portal, along with conference realignment, is leading to a consolidation of power among a handful of programs within the so-called “power four” conferences.
The Ivy League has made a conscious attempt to avoid playing in this arena by denying graduate students an opportunity to play varsity sports, opting out of player payment plans made available under the House antitrust settlement, placing constraints on NIL deals, and making it difficult for transfers from other programs to come into the Ivy League.
And these are just the most recent developments that put the Ivy League at a disadvantage.
Princeton and its Ivy compatriots were already handicapped by refusing to offer athletes scholarships and by adhering to much higher admission standards than any of their Division I competitors in sports.
If it wanted to, the Ivy League could make it easier for its members to compete in this new world of money-driven intercollegiate athletics. Graduate students with eligibility could be allowed to compete in varsity sports. The Ivy League could reverse its decision to opt out of the player payment system established by the House settlement. New procedures could be established to make it easier for players to transfer into the Ivy League.
The surprising firing of two assistant coaches will hurt in the short-term, but in the long run, the biggest threat to the relevance of Princeton basketball is the increasing flow of money into the sport and the unwillingness of the Ivy League to embrace the new realities of big-time intercollegiate athletics.
Steve Silverman ’83 is a lifelong follower of Princeton basketball, an adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Colorado Law School, and a frequent contributor to Ivy Hoops Online and The Next. He can be reached at steven.c.silverman[at]gmail.com.
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