| All eyes are focused on the action, including those of Mary Washington men’s basketball coach Marcus Kahn. Photo by Mike Atherton, d3photography.com |
By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com
“In an industry that self-promotes greatly, he doesn’t like attention. He shows up every single day and doesn’t care who gets the credit.”
So says Mark Sansone, who’s been an assistant coach at Mary Washington for 12 years, rising from starvation wages to a salary that might be liveable some place other than Northern Virginia. Fredericksburg is home for him, but he sticks around largely because of the head coach: Marcus Kahn.
“We work so well together. He’s a great person and a great coach and I learn new things from him every single day.”
Kahn is the first coach in Division III history to reach the national championship game with two different schools. His 2012 Cabrini squad gave up an 18 point second half lead against UW-Whitewater in a really crushing loss that had a number of impacts on his subsequent career.
“I learned a lot about me and the mistakes I made,” says Kahn. “When to make adjustments, when to let the players work things out — if I’m ever in that position again, I’ll do things differently. It’s like I tell the guys, don’t make the same mistake twice.”
Two for the titleMarcus Kahn is at the top of a very short list as the only Division III men’s basketball head coach to lead more than one program to the national title game. Even the list of coaches to bring more than one team to the Final Four is short.
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Echoes Sansone: “When we got here he was an offensive guy. What you learn quickly playing against the programs that we do, you have to defend at a high level. We gotta be able to score, but we have to be able to defend and rebound.”
Kahn again, “I learned early on here that if you want to be good, there’s a couple teams to the south of us that will have something to say about that. You have to lock in on what you’re doing, get better in every area. There’s not much room for errors. You have to be physically stronger and I have to get better — there are too many good coaches in Virginia to sit still.”
Randolph-Macon, who Mary Washington plays regularly, and Christopher Newport, the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference foe UMW has struggled to get past for Kahn’s 12 years, have both won national championships in the last four years. It’s a competitive bar above what Kahn faced at Cabrini.
If you look at the box score from that 2012 championship game, a few things stick out: Cabrini had 21 turnovers and Whitewater shot 54% in the second half — numbers that are unthinkable for this year’s Mary Washington squad.
The Eagles average just nine giveaways per contest and are holding opponents below 40% from the field. Defense and rebounding have become the core of Kahn’s on-court philosophy, but without losing the free movement and pass-heavy offense that’s been a hallmark of his entire career.
“It’s always been based on sharing the ball,” says Kahn. “We take the right shots and have the right guys taking the right shots. When we’re making the right play and assisting, we’re pretty good.”
At 29-3 heading into the national championship game, this is really a run that began part way through last season. Sitting at 8-12 with a team of mostly freshmen and sophomores, a home blowout of Salisbury on Feb. 8 helped the team click and see what they were capable of. From there it was a run to the C2C championship, a first in the Kahn era, and then an NCAA Tournament run to the Sweet Sixteen, where they came just one bucket away from knocking off the very Emory team that now stands between them and the Walnut and Bronze.
Zack Blue, the only player from last year’s squad to graduate, is excited to see his former teammates compete for the title.
“A few of the other alums and I got an airbnb in Indianapolis. We’re going to be there.”
Blue also spoke extensively about what makes Kahn a successful coach. “He’s looking to build a better human. He obviously wants to win basketball games, but he wants to make you a better person first.”
Family. Brotherhood. These are things a lot of coaches talk about. Sometimes it feels like a marketing pitch; other times it genuinely exudes from the program. The latter has been true throughout Kahn’s coaching career, which began in 2002 at Pitt-Greensburg, where he turned around a struggling program as he’d later do at both Cabrini and Mary Washington.
“Maybe, early on, if there are too many red flags, we don’t continue with recruiting, but for me, ” says Kahn, “Once I do start the relationship, then I value you as one of us. Now I’m going to do whatever I can to help you. It’s not in me to give up on anyone.”
Kahn has repeatedly given players a chance who might have been overlooked by other programs. It’s not always worked out, but when it has, it’s been magical.
Aaron Walton-Moss was a high school star in Camden, New Jersey, who did not have the test scores to cash in on Division I offers. He took two years off to work and take care of his daughter, playing in summer leagues, but without a lot of direction.
Says Kahn of Walton-Moss, “Here’s a kid that, if we can make it work, he’s going to be better for it. We’ll be better for it, too — obviously, he’d help us win games — but he’ll be better for it, first and foremost. This is about life. I can help him get through — he struggled early and we worked on a plan to get better and I think it was the first time anybody stuck with him and didn’t just send him home.”
Walton-Moss was named D3hoops.com National Rookie of the Year on the 2012 squad. He was a three-time All American and set the Division III record for career triple-doubles. Walton-Moss also went on to a long pro career in Argentina, Iceland, and Kosovo. He’s now back in Camden, helping to coach the next generation of Aaron Walton-Mosses and was one of the first people to text Kahn when they beat defending champs, Trinity to secure a spot in the title game.
Kahn bucks coaching trends in a lot of other ways, too. You won’t see a long line of assistants down the bench. He’s got Sansone and volunteer, Chris Lomax — with some occasional logistical help from administrators in the UMW athletic department.
“We’ve had some good volunteer assistants here,” says Sansone, “But it’s kind of like recruiting. You need the right guys with the right fit. When it works, it really works. We still talk to his Cabrini staff all the time.”
Kahn hasn’t really known any other way, which is a testament to him. He’s attracted the right support and kept those guys around. It’s not easy in the Division III coaching environment, where the incentive for assistants isn’t just to move up the ladder, but to make a living wage.
It really is reminiscent of Kahn’s recruiting philosophy, as well.
“We do a good job of identifying our top guys early and sticking with that group,” says Kahn. “Let’s target guys earlier and really go after them. It’s not just another phone call from a coach, we’re having conversations early about where we see them fitting.”
Kye Robinson, the star sophomore on this year’s squad, talked about how, by the time other schools and coaches started to get in on his recruiting, he’d already visited Mary Washington, played pick up with some of the team, been invested in the school. It was too late.
Kahn’s evaluative eye is pretty good, too; there haven’t been that many misses.
Blue remembers, “I didn’t have too many schools talk to me. Them seeing potential in me and believing in me [was really important]. He told me all the time I could have a big role at the school. UMW wasn’t too great before he got here. He built it through recruiting. If he sees it in me — he’s seen it for 20-30 years before me. It has to be true.”
The Road to Mary WashingtonMarcus Kahn is in his third head coaching position over the course of 24 seasons as a Division III head coach. Here’s how he got here, with stories from the D3hoops.com archive on each step of the way: “Pitt-Greensburg is part of a great educational system, and is located on an extremely beautiful campus. Combine that with a developing basketball program, and it was an easy choice to come here.” Results: 77-83 and two trips to the AMCC title game after inheriting a team that had gone 10-40 the previous two years. “Cabrini embodies everything that I am looking for in a coaching position. With a strong athletic and academic reputation, as well as a great facility in the Dixon Center and a passionate athletic department staff, I know the Cabrini men’s basketball program can be taken to the next level.” Results: 153-27 in six seasons, including a trip to the title game. “I’m thrilled to be a part of it. I hope to come in and pick up where last year’s team left off and put my stamp on the success of the program. I’m excited to get there and get started.” Results: 185-118 in 11 seasons, three NCAA Tournament trips and 8-2 postseason mark in last four seasons. |
Belief has been core to Mary Washington’s success. Being down most of the game to Trinity didn’t knock any confidence out of the Eagles. They fought back, took advantage of mistakes, and made buckets when it mattered. They’ve been doing it all season. That also comes from Kahn, who’s as intense on the court as he is laid back off it.
“If you took Year 1 and 2 of those Pitt-Greensburg guys,” says Kahn, “those guys would say I’ve gotten soft.”
“When I first heard that,” says Blue, “I thought they were crazy. Some of my best memories are of practice, him just losing his mind, yelling at me — then he comes up later laughing, saying he can’t even remember why he was so upset.”
“I’m fiery and demanding,” notes Kahn. “I’ll never let go of that. I still have moments I’m not super proud of, but my competitiveness is why I got into the profession — I had to keep competing. I promised my wife early on, though, I wouldn’t bring work home, not the work attitude.”
That home life, growing into his role as husband and father, has also influenced Kahn’s perspective on coaching.
“In the last six to seven, maybe eight years, I’ve started to see things differently. Knowing at one point my son might be on the other end of it; what would I say to my own son? It’s validated some of my thoughts on [coaching]. It was a different perspective to see the excitement on his face when the first college coach called him.”
Sam Kahn is a promising 6-7 freshman at DeSales.
“He wanted to forge his own path,” says the elder Kahn. “I’m really proud of him for thinking this way. He wanted to earn whatever he gets and not have it be just because Dad’s the coach.”
Sam being away has meant Marcus only got to see him play twice this season. “It was a benefit to the light C2C schedule late in the season,” says Kahn. But Kahn’s wife, Jessica, has done a lot of traveling to support DeSales. “We had a big game against CNU at home,” notes her husband, “but she went up to see Sam play against Stevens — a really big game for them as well.”
Jessica’s presence has also been important in Marcus Kahn’s development; she’s a yoga teacher who often works with UMW athletics teams.
“Early on, when she was getting into yoga, I told her, ‘if you get me into this, I’ll be even more stressed.’ I’m still not into it — I don’t practice — but listening to her teach classes, the mindfulness and breathing exercises have really helped. She’s been able to talk me through some situations.”
Whether you believe Kahn has really mellowed or not, he can certainly see the difference.
“I feel like I’ve taken a step back and enjoy it even more. Seeing those guys run around celebrating last weekend, seeing them hug each other, sitting back and watching that made me much happier than my own enjoyment. I love this for them.”
Playing for the national title is a career achievement for any coach. Kahn’s got a second bite at the apple — a privilege he doesn’t take for granted, but he’s going to approach it the way he approaches every day: with hard work and appreciation, celebrating the players and the process, not focused on the result.