Head coach Scott '87 resigns

On the heels of a 2-12 Ivy League season that represented a low point in the storied history of Princeton basketball, Joe Scott '87 unexpectedly resigned as head coach of the men's team last week. He will take over as head coach at the University of Denver.

Though Scott had come under fire after compiling an 18-24 record in the Ivy League over three years — including this season's shocking 2-12 finish — he remained "a coach in good standing," Director of Athletics Gary Walters '67 said.

Walters also said he had no intention of firing Scott and would have met with him to discuss the progress of the team after finishing his duties as chair of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. Such a discussion would have been part of Walters' regular performance management process.

Vice chancellor for athletics and recreation at Denver Peg Bradley-Doppes initiated contact with Scott three weeks ago, and Scott notified Walters on March 15 that he was interviewing for the position.

"I have to say that I wasn't very surprised [that Scott left]," Walters said. "I think this year in particular was extremely painful for him and his family and just people associated with Princeton basketball. Coaches put enormous pressure on themselves to be successful, and I'm sure that from Joe's point of view — trying to put myself in his shoes and trying to be very empathetic — it was tearing him up inside."

Denver finished 4-25 this season and fired its coach, Terry Carroll, on March 2. The subsequent coaching search lasted two-and-a-half weeks and saw 33 candidates reduced to three finalists, who were then called in for interviews on campus.

Walters said he was informed of Scott's departure at around 6 p.m. Tuesday night, only shortly before the news was reported on ESPN.com. Scott was unable to inform Princeton's players before the story broke, so the majority of the Tigers read about their coach's departure online.

"This was an extremely emotional time for me," Scott said of his stint at Princeton during a Denver press conference Wednesday. "From the athletic director to the team [and] the staff, it is just a classy place, and I'm very appreciative to always have that in my life. Princeton basketball is important to me."

Scott arrived at Princeton as the successor to John Thompson III '88, who will coach Georgetown in its Final Four game against Florida on Saturday in the NCAA Tournament.

Scott finished 38-45 overall during his three-year tenure, but it was in the Ivy League that his failures were most pronounced. In his debut season in 2004-05 — with a team that returned four starters from an Ivy League championship squad — Scott steered the Tigers to a 6-8 conference record, the first losing Ivy finish in program history. After rebounding to a surprising 10-4 league finish last season, Princeton hit a new low this season, finishing in the Ivy cellar.

Bradley-Doppes said that Denver focused on Scott's tenure at Air Force in assessing him as a candidate rather than looking at his Princeton record. In his fourth and final year with the Falcons, Scott led the team to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 42 years and is credited with the team's continuing resurgence.

"What works for him is he builds [teams] from the ground up," Bradley-Doppes said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. "Can he sustain them? Absolutely. I have every bit of confidence that if he would have stayed at Air Force, they would be playing in the postseason this year and probably not the [National Invitational Tournament]."

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Scott is also unfazed by his lack of success at Princeton.

"I felt really good about what we were doing," he said. "I've said numerous times that what we were going through this year was years two and three at Air Force. This is a process. We started three freshmen, they played unbelievable amounts of minutes, and I felt really good about that."

Walters said he still believes that hiring Scott in 2004 as Thompson's successor was the right choice at the time. Scott had been runner-up for National Coach of the Year that season and was recognized as one of the brightest young coaches in the nation.

"I don't in any way second-guess the decision that Princeton made, or that I made in concert with Princeton, to bring Joe back as the head basketball coach at Princeton," Walters said. "For whatever reasons — probably confounding reasons — it didn't work out in the manner that either Joe or any of us associated with Princeton basketball would have thought."

Walters cited the pressure of being an alumnus head coach and the criticism put forth in the media as factors contributing to Scott's departure.

"Shakespeare said 'Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,' " Walters said. "Being the head basketball coach at Princeton carries with it a lot of responsibility, a lot of pressure, particularly when you're an alumnus. I'm sure that weighing all those issues, he probably thought it was best for him to get a fresh start."