"What's your least favorite chowder? (chuckles) No one ever says New England clam."
The only time Pat Kelsey doesn’t carry himself like a college basketball coaching unicorn — the phrase used to describe him by Stadium/Field of 68 analyst Jeff Goodman — is when he’s asked about coaching the team with the nation’s longest active winning streak.
“Just really big on trying to be elite in the process and trying to detach yourself from the result,” Kelsey said. “I don’t know the winning streak, I don’t know — I’m telling you, we’re not going to stare at the ceiling tonight (saying) ‘We got a win!’ It’s just what can we control? And that’s the next thing we do, whether it’s a film session, a weight (room session). That’s all we do.”
But all the proper one-day-at-a-time cliches and insistency about the Cougars remaining unfazed by the rarefied air they occupy flow forth are halted when Kelsey is informed he’s now overseen a winning streak longer than any produced by a professional sports team in his hometown of Cincinnati.
“Maybe that would get me a text from Joe Burrow or Joey Votto,” Kelsey said with a laugh inside Matthews Arena last Saturday afternoon, shortly after no. 18 Charleston extended its winning streak to 20 games with a wire-to-wire 87-61 victory over Northeastern. The Cougars are 21-1 and 9-0 in the CAA heading into tomorrow afternoon’s game against the second-place Flying Dutchmen.
“If I could get a text from Joe Burrow or Joey Votto…”
Kelsey’s ability to not just maintain non-basketball interests but carry on a conversation about his beloved Bengals and Reds in the middle of a season — he suggests keeping an eye on Reds minor leaguer Elly De La Cruz, whom he said could be the team’s best player since Eric Davis, which is awfully high praise if you’re of a certain age — reflect the unique personality of a coach who has built an unusual powerhouse.
Kelsey, who coached Winthrop to two NCAA Tournament berths (plus another Big South tournament title days before the pandemic forced the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament in March 2020) and a 186-95 record in nine years before being named Charleston’s head coach Mar. 25, 2021, has overhauled the Cougars by taking a Moneyball philosophy — as described to Goodman — to overlooked recruits, especially in the transfer portal.
“It’s not that we go and we say say ‘We’ve got to get an NAIA guy or a D-III guy like we had last year, a D-II guy,’” Kelsey said. “You do your research, you see the character of the person — all those things you can’t measure. Then you see the metrics and you see what fits and then you’ve got to see where they play. You’ve got to look into everything. We’re not afraid to go out on a limb and do some different stuff.”
Charleston made it to the CAA semifinals last season with a roster that featured just two holdovers (Osinachi Smart and Brendan Tucker) from Grant’s final team. Kelsey’s recruits included eight freshmen from four different countries, Bucknell graduate transfers John Meeks and Jordan Sechan, Division II graduate transfer Dalton Bolon, Division III graduate transfer Dimitrius Underwood and junior college transfer Charles Lampten.
Smart graduated and Tucker transferred to Georgia State, which means this year’s Cougars are made up entirely of Kelsey recruits. Four more transfers — graduate students Ryan Larson from Wofford, Bolon’s former West Liberty teammate Pat Robinson III and Jaylon Scott from NAIA Bethel College along with Ante Brzovic, who played last season at Division II Southeastern Oklahoma State — have supplemented holdovers such as international sophomores Reyne Smith and Babacar Faye, natives of Australia and Senegal, respectively, as well as sophomore Raekwon Horton and Bolon, who redshirted last year after suffering a foot injury.
Despite assembling the pieces largely from afar, the puzzle has come together in remarkably seamless fashion for Charleston, which was picked to finish fourth in the CAA and opened the season ranked 195th at KenPom.com. After a 102-86 loss to then-no. 1 North Carolina in their second game of the season Nov. 11, the Cougars began their winning streak with four straight victories over teams that made the NCAA Tournament last season (Richmond, Davidson, Colorado State and Virginia Tech).
In a season in which the CAA is ranked no. 24 at KenPom.com — its lowest ranking ever at the advanced analytics site — Charleston achieved perhaps its most impressive unicorn feat yet Jan. 2, when it moved into the Associated Press top 25. The Cougars are the first CAA team to be ranked in the AP poll during the regular season since Navy — led by David Robinson — was in the top 10 during the 1986-87 campaign.
Nine players are averaging at least 16 minutes per game for the Cougars, who substitute so frequently that Kelsey often looks like a hockey coach changing lines on the fly. Charleston’s had eight different leading scorers this season, including four of the newcomers as well as Bolon.
“It doesn’t matter what you, as a coach, say and do or what you proclaim if it’s not in the minds and hearts of the players — there’s a hundred miles between that and that,” Kelsey said, pointing to his head and his heart. “It’s one thing to hear it and understand it. But we just coach that stuff everyday. Toughness is big and we’ve got tough kids (who) play hard.”
The formula looked particularly impressive against Northeastern, when eight Charleston players scored at least seven points — but not Bolon, who leads the Cougars with an average of 13.2 points per game even after scoring four points Saturday. There were more reserves in double figures (Ben Burnham with 15 points and Robinson with 14 points) than starters (Larson with 12 points).
Their fiery yet respectful competitiveness and unusual chemistry and was also on display. As appears to be the custom before most games, Bolon bounced around the court just prior to opening tip and palmed the basketball before exchanging greetings with the opposing starting five. After an intense battle with Northeastern’s Chris Doherty, Bolon and Doherty stopped to talk to and pat the other on the shoulder in the postgame handshake line.
In the first half, Larson misfired on an alley-oop feed to Faye, but Faye kicked out to Smith, who missed a 3-pointer before Larson grabbed the rebound and connected with Faye on an alley-oop.
Following an errant 3-point attempt by Northeastern’s Jahmyl Telfort early in the second half, the 6-foot-1 Larson tapped the rebound to the 6-foot-10 Brzovic, who immediately passed back to Larson. The guard then passed the ball to the left corner and a wide-open Smith, who drained the 3-pointer.
“Sometimes the stars align, right?” Kelsey said. “We’ve got a group that really fits. The pieces fit, basketball-wise. The pieces fit from a personality standpoint and character wise. We’ve had some really good teams at Winthrop as well — trust me, man, I’m not saying for one iota of a second like I’ve got the answer (or) I’m smarter than anybody else. It ain’t that. But we just have something we believe in and the accountability’s really high all the time.”
The belief in the process brings an uncommon relaxation to the ever-caffeinated and enthusiastic Kelsey, who bears a passing resemblance to former Philadelphia 76ers president Pat Croce (as well as, perhaps, Homer Simpson’s favorite boss, Hank Scorpio).
Most coaches climb deep into their bunkers on game day. But hours before Charleston tipped off against Coastal Carolina on Dec. 19, Kelsey took to Twitter to pay tribute to former Reds pitcher Tom Browning — who died earlier in the day — by reciting, word-for-word, Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman’s call of the final out of Browning’s perfect game in 1988.
“My mentor Skip Prosser used to say ‘At some point, the hay’s in the barn,’ you know?” Kelsey said with a grin.
And now, no matter how much he’d like to not talk about it as Charleston prepares to face the Flying Dutchmen, Kelsey’s stashed away a longer winning streak than any ever enjoyed by his hometown teams.
The Reds’ longest winning streak was a 12-game run in 1939. (Like most of us, Kelsey thought the dynastic Big Red Machine would have the record, but the 1975 Reds merely won 10 straight on their way to the first of back-to-back titles) The Bengals won their team-record 10th straight game last Sunday to advance to the AFC Championship Game. And the Cincinnati Royals, the precursor to the Kansas City-Omaha/Sacramento Kings, won 12 straight during the 1963-64 season.
“We’re trying to be great at the next thing,” Kelsey said with another laugh, lapsing ever so briefly back into routine coach talk. “That’s pretty cool, though.”
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