It has been a whirlwind of a week and a half for new men’s basketball coach Mark Gottfried. He was helping ESPN in its NCAA Championship Game coverage April 4 and the next day he was being introduced as the successor to Sidney Lowe.
“I feel like I have been drinking out of a fire hose,” Gottfried said. “But it has been great and exciting. This is a great place. I have enjoyed getting to know the players and some people around campus but I have not come up for air yet.”
The coach seems to be enjoying himself even though he is living in a hotel and hasn’t been able to search for a new house.
“I haven’t had time to think about it,” Gottfried said. “Our priorities have been to get the staff hired and spend as much time as we can with the players and those two things have been the highest priority.”
Because Gottfried was hired so quickly, the coach hadn’t yet had the opportunity to sit down and talk to his new players. Eight days later, the coach seems happy with the relationship he has already struck up with his new team.
“I think we have a long ways to go,” Gottfried said. “But I like their attitude as far as they want to win, want to learn how to win and I think they are hunting for some direction. I like where they are mentally.”
That new relationship has Gottfried convinced every one of his players will return next season, electing not to transfer or declare for the NBA draft.
“I think the response has been very good by these guys,” Gottfried said. “I expect every one of them to be here.”
Even though a few players didn’t exude the type of optimism you would hope for following the hiring announcement, the 47-year-old coach doesn’t hold it against any of his players, understanding the position they were in during the almost month-long coaching search.
“Anytime there is a coaching change, especially when it went four weeks here without a coach, there is a lot of uncertainty if you are a player,” Gottfried said. “You are not sure who the coach is going to be, how do I fit in, what the plan is for the future? During that period where there is no head coach, it is natural for everybody to kind of wonder mentally.”
Even though Gottfried has met with his players and begun to watch a lot of tape from last year on his new team, he is waiting until he is able to actually get on the court with his players to start to develop opinions of their abilities.
“I am not going to build a lot of opinions based on what they have done in the past,” Gottfried said. “I think what is important for us to do is to form our opinions from here forward as we work out with these players and get on the floor with the players.
“That way we keep an open mind as to who can do what.”
Because Gottfried will only base opinions on what he sees from his players now, he noted that no starting job is safe, no matter what you have done over the last few seasons.
“Playing time will be earned regardless of who has done what in the past,” Gottfried said.
Gottfried hasn’t just focused on the players who are already enrolled at State; he has also turned much of his attention to recruiting, as he hopes to secure the commitments from the players Lowe originally recruited to play at State. However, the new coach notes not every recruit that had originally committed to State may end up in Raleigh.
“One thing you want to understand is that you didn’t recruit those guys, so it is natural for some of those guys to look elsewhere, too,” Gottfried said. “That is not always a bad thing; I think we will just take each person separately and kind of work through it.”
Since most recruits in the 2011 class have already signed letters of intent to schools, Gottfried says he and his staff have shifted more of there focus to the 2012 class, where there are a lot more players who remain undecided.
“What you don’t want to do is go and sign players that are potentially not good enough at this point in time,” Gottfried said. “I would rather coach this group and then put all of our attention on trying to secure a great class for the following year.
“I think that is more of our mentality. There are a couple kids that we are involved with now, but our focus for the most part is for next year’s class.”
Even though it has just been a little over a week since Gottfried was hired, the new coach seems to be doing everything right so far. He has already hired two former college head coaches in Bobby Lutz and Orlando Early and has done well to manage expectations for the team next season.
“I just don’t know right now what I think for next year,” Gottfried said. “I’ve got to get into practice a little bit more and watch and study our players to kind of start to have an opinion on how competitive we can be in this league.”
