In what many Ivy overlookers consider a surprising move, Dartmouth fired Paul Cormier Monday six seasons into his second stint as Dartmouth’s head coach. Cormier went 54-116 (.318) overall and 23-61 (.274) in his second stint in Hanover after going 87-95 (.478) and 47-51 (.480) in his first stint from 1984 to 1991.
Last season, Cormier led Dartmouth to its first postseason appearance since 1959, as the team went 14-14 in the regular season to earn a fourth-place Ivy finish and CIT berth. The Big Green lost to Canisius in the first round of the CIT.
Dartmouth won just one Ivy game and five total games both in 2010-11 and 2011-12, but the Big Green improved to five conference wins in each of the next two seasons. Following Dartmouth’s 2015 CIT appearance, the Big Green went 10-18 overall and 4-10 this past season. Cormier coached the past two Ivy Rookies of the Year, Evan Boudreaux (2016) and Miles Wright (2015).
Cormier was hired in 2010 after serving as a NBA scout for 12 years. Prior to that, Cormier was head coach at Fairfield, where he went 86-111 (.437) overall and led the Stags to a NCAA Tournament first-round appearance in 1997 and a NIT first-round appearance in 1996.
That picture tells half the story. Three of the best athletes on the team riding the pine.
I have great respect for Cornier. He’s an excellent coach. Recruiting at Dartmouth is hard. Maybe the A.D. thinks a younger coach would have better success in the recruitment process? Also, he’s had disagreements with players, and several left the team and/or college. Brooks and Stone come to mind. I sometimes wondered why Gill didn’t play more. He was a disruptive force at the defensive end. These are the views of someone looking at the situation from afar.
This has the Boudreaux family all over it. They have a lot of power at Dartmouth, and they are using it.
That some crazy conspiracy theory going on there. Why advocate for the firing of a coach who plays your kid 30+ minutes a game. In reality this looks to be all on the climate of athletics up there in Hanover. Judging by whats going on with the womens program, I imagine thats what the AD is trying to make happen with the mens team.
PS- Heard some rumors of serious team dysfunction and a huge disconnect with the staff so I wouldn’t write that off as well.
Pretty funny Ivy Fan. So let me get this straight: are you indirectly blaming the Boudreaux family for Cormier’s awful 142-211 record while at Dartmouth? You don’t think he got himself fired? You think an athletic director worth his salt keeps a coach on with that kind of performance? AD’s get fired themselves for keeping bad coaches employed. You therefore must agree that Cormier should have been kept on even with his long term awful performance. Please give us more info!
Per Hoop Dirt on 4/7/16, the names floated are Rob Jeter (former Head Coach at Milwaukee), Shaun Morris (Associate Head Coach at Boston University), Dane Fischer (Assistant Coach at George Mason), Dave McLaughlin (Northeastern Associate Head Coach), Matt Kingsley (Yale Assistant Coach), Brian Earl (Associate Head Coach at Princeton), and Kevin Kuwik (Dayton Assistant Coach). Also, it is possible that a current America East Coach and MAAC Coach are in the mix.
With the MAAC, the coach could be Mike Maker of Marist. Prior to his work at Marist, he was the head coach at Williams when Dartmouth AD Harry Sheehy was the AD for the Ephs. Also, Maker was an assistant coach at Dartmouth from 1991-2002.
While there are a number of America East possibilities (Will Brown at Albany, John Becker at Vermont, Bill Herion at UNH) UMass-Lowell Head Coach Pat Duquette is a former captain at Williams College playing under then-Coach Sheehy.