The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Winning seems to follow McGuff throughout his career

Prep basketball: Fairfield isn’t ducking top seed
2/12/12
College basketball: MUH men win regular-season finale
2/12/12
OSU women back in Big Ten race
2/12/12
Hey coaches, recruits are still kids
2/12/12
RedHawks electric in lopsided victory
2/12/12
> More sports headlines

By Rick Cassano, Staff Writer 12:34 AM Sunday, March 21, 2010

CINCINNATI — The Xavier University women’s basketball program continues to thrive under Kevin McGuff’s leadership.

It should be no surprise. As a coach, McGuff has won everywhere he’s been. His three stints as an assistant produced lots of winning:

• One year at Badin High School (25-1)

• Three years at Miami University (54-30)

• Six years at Notre Dame (160-39, including an NCAA championship)

The fifth-ranked Musketeers (27-3) will take an 18-game winning streak into the NCAA tournament today, March 21, against East Tennessee State at XU’s Cintas Center.

“We’re very talented,” said McGuff, in his eighth season at the helm. “I felt like this is something that we could achieve, and I’m very hopeful that we have much more that we’re going to accomplish.”

Specifically, why has this squad been able to roll through January, February and March without a loss?

“We’ve got seniors that have provided great leadership,” McGuff said. “We’ve had good post players over the past couple years. Now our perimeter play has caught up with our post play. We are very balanced inside and out. It’s also a very deep team.

“We really try to get up and down the floor on offense,” he continued. “Defensively, we’re going to play more half-court man-to-man. Our goal is to have a real identity rooted in defense and rebounding. We talk about two stats, defensive field-goal percentage and rebounding margin. We’ve been in the top 10 in the country the past couple years in both of them.”

What can’t be quantified is the coach himself. But the players like him. They want to play for him. That means everything.

“I just try to create an environment where we set expectations for our players on a daily basis and work to meet those expectations,” McGuff said. “That’s a wide-ranging thing. That could be from yelling at somebody to pulling them aside and patting them on the back. I think you have to be like that because you’re dealing with a lot of different personalities.”

The players speak

April Phillips and Katie Rutan show the diversity of Xavier’s program, and not just because Phillips is black and Rutan is white.

Different people, different skills, different sides of the country. Both decided to become Musketeers in large part because of Kevin McGuff.

Phillips, a 6-foot senior forward from Long Beach, Calif., played at Georgia Tech as a freshman before transferring to Xavier.

“I watched Xavier play George Washington on television before I talked to the staff, and watching Coach McGuff’s demeanor on the sideline was something that actually drew me to come to Xavier,” Phillips said. “Just seeing how he interacted with the players, even in the timeouts. He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t going berserk. I really liked that about him.”

Rutan is a 5-8 freshman guard from suburban Philadelphia. She can easily recall being a nervous kid who was put at ease by McGuff in their first meeting.

More importantly to her, he hasn’t changed since that encounter.

“Not at all,” Rutan said. “He’s the same Coach McGuff. You hear that a lot of coaches change when you get there. I was so happy that didn’t happen.”

Both players were asked to describe McGuff as a coach.

“He’s definitely a calm guy,” Phillips said. “At the same time, we have a high level of intensity when we need to get things done. He has a pretty weird sense of humor at times. He’ll kind of throw in little side jokes.”

“He has a lot of energy,” Rutan said. “He tells us he doesn’t care if we make mistakes because that’s how we learn. He’s not one to yell, but he’s one to teach strongly.”

And then there is McGuff the Shooter, as in 3-pointers. He’s always launching bombs at practice, just like he did back in the day.

“Oh yeah, he’s always shooting around,” Phillips said. “I just don’t get in there. I’m afraid to lose to him.”

Said McGuff, “We have some shooting contests. I only shoot 3s. I don’t go near the basket anymore. I don’t shoot it like I used to, so I don’t win a whole lot anymore. But I’m still trying, absolutely.”

Rutan said she found out quickly that McGuff likes to let it fly.

“On my first recruiting visit, he brought me down to the gym and of course I had to have a shoot-off, 3-pointers only,” said Rutan, the Musketeers’ top bomber this season with 76 treys. “He took me down the first day. It was close, though, very close. I had to let him win ... you can tell him I said that. I don’t take it easy now. No more.”

McGuff is the father of four children ages 6 and younger. Phillips mentioned his home life when asked if there was something about the coach that might surprise people.

“Well, he has a black wife — that’s what gets to a lot of people,” Phillips said. “And it’s kind of cute to see him interact with his kids. You don’t think of him as a soft, ooh-ooh type of guy. I think a lot of people would be surprised to know that he is a very hands-on father.”

1 | 2 next page »

The Kevin McGuff file

Age: 40

Family: Wife, Letitia; children, Kilyn, Keiryn, Lukas, Lake

Residence: North Avondale

Education: The 1988 Badin High School graduate earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from St. Joseph’s (Ind.) College and a master’s degree in sport studies from Miami University

Playing history: At Badin, he helped the Rams go 28-0 and win the Division III state championship in 1987-88. At St. Joseph’s, he was a four-year player and led the Pumas to the NCAA Division II tournament as a senior.

Coaching history: Assistant at Badin, one season (1992-93); assistant at Miami, three seasons (1993-1996); assistant at Notre Dame, six seasons (1996-2002); head coach at Xavier, eight seasons (2002-present)

Share this article