On Sept. 30, men’s basketball head coach Jason Leone was asked to speak alongside other distinguished basketball coaches from around the state at the 35th Annual Basketball Coaches Association of New York (BCANY) Clinic and Conference at SUNY Cortland.
Leone has been widely regarded as one of the best coaches at his position in the area, proven by winning the BCANY 2015-16 Men’s Div. III Coach of the Year award, announced earlier this year. Leone stresses the importance of a team atmosphere and understands that all athletic programs rest on the shoulders of their athletes.
“Individual awards always come because of team success,” Leone said. “I think one of the things that as an experienced coach that happens is that your team experiences some success and the challenge is that you stay consistent with the things that you do each and every single day. I think our program has a learning lesson from last year, I think we’ve all stay consistent in terms of our work ethic and how we conduct our day to day business.”
Leone recognizes the success he brought to the program the last five years, but continues to instill the importance of leadership within a team, as he is a true believer in putting athletes first.
“When I got here five years ago, we had incredible senior leadership,” Leone said. “We had two guys that were All-Americans. We were fortunate enough, when those guys graduated, to follow that up with strong recruiting classes. In particular, Brian Sortino has established himself statistically and as a winner, one of the best players in our program’s history as well, named an All-American. First and foremost, any success we’ve had is because of the players and their talent level.”
When talking about success, it is important to note the achievement of last year’s men’s basketball team. They forced their deepest postseason run in program history, making the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. It was the third time in five years that Leone had a team make it to the Div. III big dance.
“I think it’s really important that everyone understands [last season] was a compilation of a lot of things,” Leone said. “We certainly had our ups and downs last year, the number one reason for our success was the talent level of our players. Second, I thought our players were very resilient, as we had some difficult times in the middle of the season, losing four out of five games. For our players to own their problems and not point fingers, to persevere through those things put us in a position where we had a successful end to our season.”
Leone’s game plans are designed to be simplistic, so much so that he supports the value of sticking with what works, to the point where it is a focal point he addresses at these clinics.
“What I talked about at the clinic was how important I think managing the entire game is,” Leone said. “I don’t think any game is about one play, I think it’s about a compilation of plays. First and foremost, simplicity is very important. I think it’s important to stay true to whatever style of play that you value. I also think it involves putting your players in positions where they can excel at the end of games.”
The Syracuse native enjoys the learning process that goes along with clinics and camps.
“I really enjoy going to these clinics because they provide for the initial excitement for this season,” Leone said. “I love interacting with other coaches and learning about their ideas and how they run their programs. You observe, you learn, you talk to other coaches about what works for them.”
Leone said he believes in humility and exercises this belief by plucking good basketball ideals and techniques from even the unlikeliest of sources.
“I don’t care where my ideas come from,” Leone said. “It could be from a youth league coach or from Stan Van Gundy, who I’ve heard speak. I don’t ever discriminate at all about where my ideas come from. I think that’s one of the fun things about going to coaching clinics. You never know where your next great idea is going to come from.”
Looking at this upcoming season, Leone remains optimistic that the team can continue pushing themselves forward past their prior success to new heights.
“I think the fact that our program has had such good continuity and the fact we’ve retained these seniors from when they came in together has proved to be very important and will help our success this season,” Leone said. “In terms of overall expectation, we want our team to be the most committed and together group of guys. Anything that happens in terms of wins and losses is a byproduct of the sacrifice that the players make and their ability to be resilient throughout a very long season. Any expectations I have are based on them playing for one another and being committed to our core values. I believe that we’re talented enough, that if they focus on some of those details, that will project out into the type of success that people around here want to see in terms of wins and losses.”
As the season draws near, it is vital to understand and appreciate the bricks that build a successful program. Leone has been building his for the last five years, detail by detail. It is time to continue construction.
