Patsos doesn’t go far to recruit for Loyola
Every basketball coach who lands a college job at a school near Baltimore or Washington dutifully professes his intention to recruit the area. Considering the treasure trove of talent nearby, why not?
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But some coaches recruit the area better than others. When Mike Lonergan took over this year at George Washington, for example, his roster included just one player from the area. At the other extreme is Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos, who depends almost exclusively on homegrown players.
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This season all eight of the Loyola players who average at least 10 minutes per game are from D.C., Baltimore or their surrounding suburbs. It’s no coincidence that Loyola (18-5) has a better record than any Division-I team in the area.
“This is the most talented team we’ve had here and the one that plays the best together,” said Patsos, who is in his eighth season at the Baltimore school. “We’ve done it with area players.”
Friday night at home, Loyola plays one of its biggest games of Patsos’ tenure, welcoming Iona (19-5, 11-2). The teams share first place in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, which Loyola last won in 1994.
Patsos, a former player and coach at Catholic University and a 13-year assistant at Maryland under Gary Williams, has deep local roots and has used them to lift his program. When Patsos took over in 2004, Loyola was coming off a 1-27 year and 10 straight losing seasons.
Erik Etherly, a 6-7 junior who averages 13.1 points and 7.6 rebounds a game, serves as an example of what it takes to get players at Loyola. Patsos recruited Etherly out of Annandale High, but he opted for Northeastern. After an unhappy season with the Huskies, Etherly called Patsos.
“He said I was always welcome here,” Etherly said. “It was the only call I made. I didn’t have to think about where to go.”
Etherly said his decision had a lot to do with the appealing style of the Greyhounds, who play like their nickname suggests. According to Patsos, what he learned from Williams at Maryland was that the best recruiting tool was an up-tempo offense.
Other Loyola players who have followed the same route as Etherly and found a spot in the rotation have been 6-10 senior Shane Walker (Montrose Christian), who transferred from Maryland, and 6-8 sophomore Jordan Latham (City College), who arrived from Xavier.
Patsos used a different recruiting tactic with junior guard Bobby Olson (Georgetown Prep), who averages 11.6 points a game and has earned the nickname “Big Shot,” for his work in the clutch. Patsos put the full-court press on Olson early in his junior year.
“Loyola was the first school that recruited me,” Olson said. “I took my visit, loved it, and made my decision.”
The area’s wealth of talent is well documented. A recent report by college basketball guru Ken Pomeroy shows that there are more Division-I players per capita from Maryland (18.7 per million) than any other state, and that there are nearly twice as many players per capita from Washington D.C. (36.6 per million) than Maryland. Virginia comes in as the No. 6 state most populated by college basketball players (13.4 per million).
And if Patsos continues to get his way, he’ll get more than his share.
