MacDonald Recalls Years Spent Working Under Final Four Bound Beilein

Canisius College Athletics

John Beilein (crouching), seen here in this file photo provided by Canisius College Athletics, has played a significant role in the career of Daemen's Mike MacDonald (first seat behind)

Men's Basketball | 3/29/2018 1:25:00 PM

AMHERST, N.Y. - The madness of March brought about by upsets and buzzer beaters during the NCAA Tournament has taken Western New York by storm this year. Local teams Buffalo and St. Bonaventure made some noise early in the tournament, and now Western New York native John Beilein has his Michigan Wolverines poised for their second Final Four appearance since 2013. Daemen head coach Mike MacDonald, no stranger to success on the hardwood in the month of March, spent five seasons as an assistant on Beilein's staff at Canisius in the mid-1990's. MacDonald recently caught up with daemenwildcats.com for a look back at those years...

DAEMENWILDCATS.COM: So what were the circumstances that led to you working for coach Beilein at Canisius?

MIKE MACDONALD: I had been at Canisius for four years and the head coach at the time, Marty Marbach got fired. And when Marty got fired, the other two assistants and myself, Dave Niland and Phil Seymour, we had no idea what was going to happen to us. Dave had actually played at Le Moyne for John Beilein. Dave was cousins with John. Dave had talked to John when it opened. John had actually been a finalist for the job the last time. Dave talked to him and John called me and said, "Listen, I've talked to David, I've heard a lot of good things about you. If I get the job, you know, I'm going to keep you." So we had a dog in the fight. We knew who we wanted to get the job. And, we were very fortunate that John got the job. He wasn't bringing anybody from Le Moyne with him, his assistants were part-time at the time and he ended up keeping all three assistants.

D: Coach Beilein was only at Canisius a short time, but the teams during those years were very successful. What do you remember most about what he specifically brought to the program?

MM: I think he brought discipline. He brought a real sense of purpose and a belief that we were going to win. He really conveyed that belief to the guys that we were going to win, and he had a plan. He had a system in place that was successful and he believed in, and that we were going to build on that and become a winning program, and he was right.

D: What stands out about coach Beilein in relation to his ability to rise up the college coaching ranks?

MM: I think no matter what, he hasn't changed. I think that's the coolest thing about John is he has not changed. He is the same guy, and I think whether you ask his friends up in Niagara County that he grew up with, the guys in Lockport, or if you asked the people that knew him at Le Moyne or Canisius or Richmond, he's the same guy. He's making a lot more money, you know, but he is a genuine down to earth guy who loves to coach basketball, loves to work with guys. I think he really enjoys watching guys get better and really, really enjoys watching teams get better.

D: How big of an influence would you say he's been on your own coaching career?

MM: Incredible. I mean there's no way you can really quantify it. He has been obviously a mentor, somebody I can bounce ideas off of. He kept me in the business when, you know, a lot of guys could have cleaned house, so we're always thankful for that. He helped push me for the job at Canisius when he left, which obviously I'm always eternally grateful for. So he's a great guy to learn from whether you're a basketball player or a basketball coach.

D: One of the most impressive things about coach Beilein is the coaching tree he's developed that you're obviously a part of. Who are some of the other coaches on that tree?

MM: Well, it's funny for awhile there, you know, he always used to say when we were at Canisius and he'd be like, "Well I don't have guys, I don't have a mentor." He was never an assistant coach, so he didn't have guys who would call for him. Herb Sendek it might have been the head coach at Miami of Ohio, similar level at the time. He'd have Rick Pitino call for him and boom, get the job. You know, John didn't have that. And I think he was always conscious of trying to help develop us, but it's something that kind of evolved over time where he didn't really have a huge tree. And then I got hired at Canisius and then few years later Jeff Neubauer got hired at Eastern Kentucky, Phil Seymour went on to become the women's coach at Providence. Obviously Dave Niland, I guess Dave was kind of the first one. He became the head coach at Penn State Behrend. Kevin Broderick is at Nazareth. The tree has definitely grown, yeah, definitely grown. John didn't come from anyone else's tree, so I think he always was conscious of trying to help guys get there. And now you see there are guys all over the place at all different levels who've had a lot of success.

D: What's your best John Beilein story? It doesn't necessarily have to be basketball related.

MM: The one I like to tell a lot is, we were going to Saint Bonaventure his first year. For the background, we played the Bonnies at home the third game of the year at The Aud and we got killed, down about 20-0, they were pressing us. In those years we always played them twice, home and away. So we're going down to where Canisius had never won, and we're going to play the Bonnies, and our point guard Binky Johnson gets sick, can't go, can't go the game, sick, fever, whole deal so he stays in the dorm room. We're on the bus on the way down and I'm thinking I should've went recruiting because they beat beat us by about 20 something the first game, and now we have no point guard. They're going to press us like crazy. Before the game, we'd go over the scouting report and I'm giving the scouting report, it was my scout. I'm standing in front of team talking and then John usually comes in and talks about a couple things and then send them out. Right when I finished up, he all of a sudden goes, "Look it. They like to do this delay game and whenever they get a little bit of a lead, they'll delay late in the game and here's what they do and here's what we're going to do to defend it." And I remember standing off to the side in the locker room going, he's nuts. A delay game? Why are they going to delay? Because they just killed us by 20 something. We have no point guard. They're going to kill us. Wouldn't you know our best player, Craig Wise, gets in foul trouble that game. Another starter breaks his nose in that game. We're playing two walk-ons for a good portion of the game. Obviously no point guard. Next thing you know, we're in the game. We're hitting shots, everything. End of the game, we're down by one. They come up and what do they do? They go to that delay game and I'm sitting there on the bench going, this is incredible, you know? How does this guy know it and next thing you know, Damone James jumps in front of a guy, reads it perfectly, knocks the ball off the guy from Bonaventure's leg out of bounds. Our ball. We'd get the ball and we have a last shot now. Unfortunately, the last shot didn't go down, but we were playing with two guards, our four man had a broken nose, came back, you know, all fixed up. Three man was in foul trouble. We had one five man and a couple walk-ons and we just about pulled that game out, and I'm saying this guy something, it's unbelievable and you really valued what he did. But those games, those things are good. I think the thing you learn about John, his family's the most important thing to him. He is a tremendous family man. He cares about his kids. He was going to make time for his kids, whether it was bringing them to a practice, whether he would go do something. He'd say, "No, I'm not going to recruit today, I'm going to spend time with my family, I'm going to do something here." And you know, you really respect that. He knows what's important, he really does. He has tremendous balance, tremendous confidence in himself as a coach. And, you know, sometimes he might be impatient with guys, you know, not learning things and everything, but in the end he's a great teacher, a teacher who cares and he cares about the things that are important and it just shows you it's great that these good things are happening to him because he deserves it. He really does.

D: Along those lines, he's widely considered to be the "good guy" of college basketball. Right. Do you find it somewhat karmic that in a year that's been so turbulent in college basketball that his team has just continued to win and is playing in the Final Four?

MM: I think it's like any other profession, you know, a few bad apples can spoil the bunch. Unfortunately what's been promoted is a lot of the bad guys, but there's also a lot of good guys out there who do things the right way. Michigan does things the right way. John does things the right way. I go back to, I remember this story. We were recruiting a kid from Connecticut and the high school coach wouldn't let anybody talk to him and this was probably John's second year at Canisius, maybe third year. So I'm recruiting the kid and I'm saying, well, we want to be able to talk to him. He said, you have to offer a scholarship first and I went back to John and then John goes, "How can I offer him a scholarship? I've never talked to him. I don't know what he talks like. I don't even know what he sounds like. I'd like to be able to talk to him." And the coach says, "No, my rule is you offer, then you're allowed to talk to him," which sounds kind of ridiculous, right? But that's the way it was. And John was like, no, I'm not going to recruit the kid then because I don't know him and I'm not going to go out and offer somebody a scholarship which I find very valuable just to be able to get a chance to talk to him. The kid ended up playing in our league, going against us. He never really hurt us ever. But he stuck to his values and he believes in his values. He knows what he wants and he believes in what he's doing his way, and he's going to do it his way.

D: You've told us a couple of stories already, but what is your fondest memory of working for coach Beilein during those years? Is it a particular game or maybe a whole season?

MM: There are a lot. I mean, there were some unbelievable wins. Beating Washington State in The Aud, loudest I've heard an arena in Buffalo was when we beat Washington State to go to the NIT semifinals. It was the NIT quarterfinals, it was a home game and that was awesome. Beating Fairfield to go to the NCAA tournament was really cool, really awesome in Albany. It was a whirlwind weekend where we were like, you know, we didn't think we were going to do it. We lost our best player, the MAAC Player of the Year, Darrell Barley who broke his thumb in practice on Monday, and we were just despondent because we thought this was our chance, this was the one we were going to get. And next thing you know, win on Saturday, win on Sunday, win on Monday and it was like, it was a whirlwind. It was unbelievable. It was a tremendous thing. It was, I wouldn't say out of the blue, but definitely unexpected. I think people kind of expected us to be going home really quickly and we win three games, we win the tournament and that was awesome to go to the NCAA tournament for first time since the 1950's. We had a game we won at Cincinnati, we're down 20 at Cincinnati, came back and they booed boot Bob Huggins and the Bearcats off the floor afterwards when they lost to us. It was awesome. A win at The Palestra, Penn had two NBA guards and was ranked in the top 25 for the first game of the year, preseason NIT 1994-95. We went in and won that game, came back from a deficit. We had a lot of games like that, which were awesome. But in the end, the thing you remember is the relationships, the friendships and the connections you had with the coaches. You know, we had a very close staff. First, it was me and Dave Niland, Phil Seymour, John. And then Dave left and Kevin Broderick got hired. It was Kevin Broderick, Phil and myself and John for a couple of years during that stretch. And the last year Brian Miller and Richard Walsh came in. So we had really good guys to work with and John was the guy who was a leader and it was a key that, you know, the head coach kind of sets the tone and he set the tone that we're going to work hard. The guys worked hard. But we had good people around us and when you're working with good people, it's a lot easier to work.

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