Latest news with #JimCrutchfield
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Stories of the Week: March 30 through April 5
CLARKSBURG, – Here are some of the top stories this week on the WBOY 12News Facebook page. The Novelis plant in Fairmont is set to close in the coming months. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is laying off hundreds of workers in Morgantown. West Virginia streams are being stocked with golden rainbow trout during the month of April. Dr. Kelly Nelson was recognized as a Mountaineer of Honor award recipient. Clarksburg native Jim Crutchfield won his second NCAA DII national championship at Nova Southeastern University. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Clarksburg, WV native wins NCAA DII championship with Florida team
CLARKSBURG, (WBOY) — Clarksburg native Jim Crutchfield brought home another NCAA DII national championship over the weekend with his Florida team. Crutchfield, who currently coaches men's basketball for Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Florida, was born and raised in Harrison County. The Nova Southeastern Sharks defeated Cal. State in the DII national championship game on Saturday. The Sharks tied the program record for wins in a season (36), have the most wins in NCAA Men's Basketball, and closed the season on a 23-game winning streak, according to the school's athletics website. Crutchfield also won a national championship with the Sharks in 2023. MLB players for West Virginians to watch this season Crutchfield attended Roosevelt-Wilson High School in Clarksburg, where he played basketball. He graduated from WVU in 1978. After college, Crutchfield coached at Cameron High School and then went on to coach at West Liberty University as an assistant coach from 1989 to 2004, then as head coach from 2004 until 2017. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
29-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
MJ Iraldi rallies Nova Southeastern past Cal State Dominguez Hills 74-73 in Division II title game
FILE - West Liberty basketball heard coach Jim Crutchfield directs his team during college basketball practice on the campus of the Division II school in West Liberty, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Mark Stahl, file) MJ Iraldi made two free throws with 17.8 seconds left and finished with 27 points to rally Nova Southeastern to a 74-73 victory over Cal State Dominguez Hills in the championship game of the Division II Tournament at the Ford Center on Saturday. It was the second national championship for the top-seeded Sharks (36-1) in the past three seasons under head coach Jim Crutchfield. Advertisement Iraldi's free throws came after David Cheatom had given the seventh-seeded Toros (30-6) the lead with 24 seconds remaining. Cheatom had a layup in traffic roll off the rim in the final second. Iraldi made 8 of 16 shots with a 3-pointer and 10 of 12 foul shots. He added nine rebounds and three steals. Tyler Eberhart totaled 14 points and six boards. Dallas Graziani pitched in with 13 points and nine assists. Jeremy Dent-Smith led Dominguez Hills with 27 points and 10 rebounds before fouling out with 1:19 left. Dent-Smith helped rally the Toros from an eight-point deficit with 11 minutes remaining. He scored six straight points to tie the game at 62 with 8:15 to go. Cheatom scored 15. A layup by Ross Reeves gave the Sharks a 17-9 lead seven minutes into the game. Dent-Smith's basket capped a 15-5 run from there as the Toros moved in front and played with a lead over the final 7:37, taking a 42-38 advantage into halftime. Advertisement The Sharks capped an unbeaten 36-0 season with a 111-101 victory over West Liberty in the 2023 title game before losing to Minnesota State 88-85 last season. The Toros' women also lost in the championship game. Minnesota State's men and women won championships last season as the first school with teams in both title games. ___ Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college basketball: and
Fox Sports
26-03-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Big fish, different pond: March Madness is Nova SE's time thanks to a coaching giant in Division II
Associated Press The coach with the best winning percentage in college basketball history won't be anywhere near San Antonio when the Final Four rolls around next week. By then, Jim Crutchfield might be on a pickleball court. Or maybe playing tennis, the sport that launched one of the NCAA's most colorful and successful coaching careers before it moved into basketball, where the 69-year-old coaching lifer is two wins away from his second Division II title at Nova Southeastern. Though he operates at a different level than the Izzos, Pitinos and Caliparis who dominate headlines this time of year, Crutchfield — based in South Florida at a school with around 7,000 undergrad students — finds himself playing the same game as all those guys, just smaller, and maybe better. It involves every-growing piles of NIL money, promises that are sometimes kept, and players coming and going. What Crutchfield refuses to budge on is that it also involves teaching, learning and, mostly, doing things differently in a profession full of copycats who are navigating a changing industry that none have truly mastered. 'We never won a warm-up in tennis,' Crutchfield, a one-time math teacher, explains about his first big job. It was a posting he took in the early 1990s at West Liberty University in West Virginia, mainly because nobody else would, and because it gave him a chance to work as an assistant for a not-very-good hoops team that he would eventually take over. 'They were the kind of tennis players nobody wanted to play against," he says of a team that wasn't good when he got there, but went on to win 11 league titles. "They didn't look good, but they're hard to beat. When I got over to the basketball team, I thought, 'We need to have a little of that here, too.'' By breaking the mold, Crutchfield found the key to winning Crutchfield is a walking embodiment of the old Frank Sinatra classic, 'My Way.' 'Everything I like to do is sort of home grown, even the drills we do,' the coach says. 'But, you know, I didn't invent the game.' He did invent a version of the full-court press. Not the ones you see on ESPN but one that beats people down for 40 straight minutes — off misses and makes, off inbounds passes and steals. From every direction. All the time. Teaching it, preaching it, then recruiting the kind of players who are willing to commit to it, is what has led to a 561-86 record over 20 seasons as a head coach. That's an .867 winning percentage. Of every basketball coach with 10 or more years in college, there is no better record. 'It's a rural, podunk D-2 school and he ran with it,' says Jordan Fee, now an assistant at FAU who played for Crutchfield at West Liberty and coached on his staff there and at Nova. "Part of the beauty is, he said 'We're gonna play this way.' Everybody else would say 'You can't do that. You can't sustain that for 40 minutes.' And his thing is 'Why not?' There's a naivete to him that is, like, so beautiful.' Crutchfield's quintessential drill speaks as much to his time as a coach as a math teacher: He deduced that it's possible for a player trapping in the backcourt with his back turned at the baseline to pivot and sprint to halfcourt in 2.5 seconds. It takes another second to get to the opposite free throw line. By not hesitating, or taking time to assess and catch their breath, most players can cover those 75 feet in 3.5 seconds. If they do that, Crutchfield knows more times than not, there will be no easy layups on the other end even if the offense breaks the press. It took about five minutes Tuesday night for Nova's first Elite Eight opponent, Assumption, to buckle. Nova had built a 10-point lead early, stretched it to as many as 25 and coasted in to a 102-93 victory. Next is a semifinal Thursday against Washburn. 'It's part of that brainwashing process," Crutchfield says, only half-kidding. "I'm just trying to convince the guys that if we're going to play this game, because we're all spread out and the basket's unprotected, then we're going to have to do some things differently. Play harder." The rules for Crutchfield's teams Fee tells a story about his dad, a veteran high school coach in Pennsylvania, bringing some buddies to a coaching clinic Crutchfield was part of. Their hopes were to find a new drill, a new method, a new way of thinking they could install in their own programs. They sat there for hours watching 'Coach Crutch' with notebooks in hand. When the session was over, Fee's dad had scribbled down maybe three lines. 'If something's not working, Coach Crutch is a 'play harder' guy," Fee says. "Everybody wants there to be some secret, special sauce, but it's not really there. They don't want an answer like this.' One way to know it's working: Fee estimates there are 5-10 other D-2 programs across the country using some version of his approach, from Chaminade in Hawaii to Gannon in Pennsylvania to Coker (South Carolina) to Bluefield State (West Virginia) and West Liberty, which lost Tuesday in the national quarterfinals. Others try to learn from it. Miami Heat coach Eric Spoelstra is known to drive up I-95 for an occasional visit with Crutchfield, hoping for some insight about getting 15 different people with different agendas on the same page. Miami's former coach, Jim Larrañaga, was a frequent visitor. When Michigan's Dusty May was at FAU, just a short drive away, he'd set up scrimmages against the Sharks. 'I said, 'If nothing else, we'll learn what the hardest-playing team in the country looks like,'' May says. May says he and Crutchfield went to a coaching clinic that featured several of the game's biggest names — Matt Painter, Billy Donovan, and so on. 'I don't think he knew who 90% of those coaches were,' May says. 'I think he knows, like, who Jerry Tarkanian is, and Bobby Knight." And Rick Pitino. Though he mostly made things up on his own, Crutchfield said something clicked when he saw Pitino's 1987 Providence team, led by Donovan, make a Cinderella run to the Final Four on the strength of a full-court press and the then-innovative use of the newly drawn 3-point line. 'I have no idea what Pitino had in mind, but the pressure was more random,' Crutchfield said. 'There was a lot more running from behind. I thought, I like the randomness of that. People are really uncomfortable when you're running with them or behind them as opposed to to a 2-2-1 or a diamond-and-1 press. So I thought, if I ever do get a chance to coach college basketball, that's probably the route I'm going to go,.'" A coach who likes to build things In 13 seasons at West Liberty, Crutchfield took a program that had won four games the season before he took over and compiled a record of 359–61 with six trips to the Elite Eight. A sucker for reclamation projects, he moved to Nova Southeastern, which was coming off a six-win season in 2017. By Crutchfield's second year there, the Sharks were in the Elite Eight. This week, they are going for their third trip to the final and second national title in three years. Not bad for a program that lost four players to bigger programs offering better name, image and likeness compensation deals after the Sharks went undefeated in 2023. In Division II, schools can offer some scholarship help and some NIL money. They can't compete with what's happening at the next level up. Crutchfield wonders how much longer he'll be able to keep rebuilding in today's atmosphere. He's not ready to stop trying. 'I'm kind of old school,' he said. "I like to develop players into a system. I think that's the way to win.' ___ AP March Madness bracket: and coverage: Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. recommended
Associated Press
26-03-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Big fish, different pond: March Madness is Nova SE's time thanks to a coaching giant in Division II
The coach with the best winning percentage in college basketball history won't be anywhere near San Antonio when the Final Four rolls around next week. By then, Jim Crutchfield might be on a pickleball court. Or maybe playing tennis, the sport that launched one of the NCAA's most colorful and successful coaching careers before it moved into basketball, where the 69-year-old coaching lifer is two wins away from his second Division II title at Nova Southeastern. Though he operates at a different level than the Izzos, Pitinos and Caliparis who dominate headlines this time of year, Crutchfield — based in South Florida at a school with around 7,000 undergrad students — finds himself playing the same game as all those guys, just smaller, and maybe better. It involves every-growing piles of NIL money, promises that are sometimes kept, and players coming and going. What Crutchfield refuses to budge on is that it also involves teaching, learning and, mostly, doing things differently in a profession full of copycats who are navigating a changing industry that none have truly mastered. 'We never won a warm-up in tennis,' Crutchfield, a one-time math teacher, explains about his first big job. It was a posting he took in the early 1990s at West Liberty University in West Virginia, mainly because nobody else would, and because it gave him a chance to work as an assistant for a not-very-good hoops team that he would eventually take over. 'They were the kind of tennis players nobody wanted to play against,' he says of a team that wasn't good when he got there, but went on to win 11 league titles. 'They didn't look good, but they're hard to beat. When I got over to the basketball team, I thought, 'We need to have a little of that here, too.'' By breaking the mold, Crutchfield found the key to winning Crutchfield is a walking embodiment of the old Frank Sinatra classic, 'My Way.' 'Everything I like to do is sort of home grown, even the drills we do,' the coach says. 'But, you know, I didn't invent the game.' He did invent a version of the full-court press. Not the ones you see on ESPN but one that beats people down for 40 straight minutes — off misses and makes, off inbounds passes and steals. From every direction. All the time. Teaching it, preaching it, then recruiting the kind of players who are willing to commit to it, is what has led to a 561-86 record over 20 seasons as a head coach. That's an .867 winning percentage. Of every basketball coach with 10 or more years in college, there is no better record. 'It's a rural, podunk D-2 school and he ran with it,' says Jordan Fee, now an assistant at FAU who played for Crutchfield at West Liberty and coached on his staff there and at Nova. 'Part of the beauty is, he said 'We're gonna play this way.' Everybody else would say 'You can't do that. You can't sustain that for 40 minutes.' And his thing is 'Why not?' There's a naivete to him that is, like, so beautiful.' Crutchfield's quintessential drill speaks as much to his time as a coach as a math teacher: He deduced that it's possible for a player trapping in the backcourt with his back turned at the baseline to pivot and sprint to halfcourt in 2.5 seconds. It takes another second to get to the opposite free throw line. By not hesitating, or taking time to assess and catch their breath, most players can cover those 75 feet in 3.5 seconds. If they do that, Crutchfield knows more times than not, there will be no easy layups on the other end even if the offense breaks the press. It took about five minutes Tuesday night for Nova's first Elite Eight opponent, Assumption, to buckle. Nova had built a 10-point lead early, stretched it to as many as 25 and coasted in to a 102-93 victory. Next is a semifinal Thursday against Washburn. 'It's part of that brainwashing process,' Crutchfield says, only half-kidding. 'I'm just trying to convince the guys that if we're going to play this game, because we're all spread out and the basket's unprotected, then we're going to have to do some things differently. Play harder.' The rules for Crutchfield's teams Fee tells a story about his dad, a veteran high school coach in Pennsylvania, bringing some buddies to a coaching clinic Crutchfield was part of. Their hopes were to find a new drill, a new method, a new way of thinking they could install in their own programs. They sat there for hours watching 'Coach Crutch' with notebooks in hand. When the session was over, Fee's dad had scribbled down maybe three lines. 'If something's not working, Coach Crutch is a 'play harder' guy,' Fee says. 'Everybody wants there to be some secret, special sauce, but it's not really there. They don't want an answer like this.' One way to know it's working: Fee estimates there are 5-10 other D-2 programs across the country using some version of his approach, from Chaminade in Hawaii to Gannon in Pennsylvania to Coker (South Carolina) to Bluefield State (West Virginia) and West Liberty, which lost Tuesday in the national quarterfinals. Others try to learn from it. Miami Heat coach Eric Spoelstra is known to drive up I-95 for an occasional visit with Crutchfield, hoping for some insight about getting 15 different people with different agendas on the same page. Miami's former coach, Jim Larrañaga, was a frequent visitor. When Michigan's Dusty May was at FAU, just a short drive away, he'd set up scrimmages against the Sharks. 'I said, 'If nothing else, we'll learn what the hardest-playing team in the country looks like,'' May says. May says he and Crutchfield went to a coaching clinic that featured several of the game's biggest names — Matt Painter, Billy Donovan, and so on. 'I don't think he knew who 90% of those coaches were,' May says. 'I think he knows, like, who Jerry Tarkanian is, and Bobby Knight.' And Rick Pitino. Though he mostly made things up on his own, Crutchfield said something clicked when he saw Pitino's 1987 Providence team, led by Donovan, make a Cinderella run to the Final Four on the strength of a full-court press and the then-innovative use of the newly drawn 3-point line. 'I have no idea what Pitino had in mind, but the pressure was more random,' Crutchfield said. 'There was a lot more running from behind. I thought, I like the randomness of that. People are really uncomfortable when you're running with them or behind them as opposed to to a 2-2-1 or a diamond-and-1 press. So I thought, if I ever do get a chance to coach college basketball, that's probably the route I'm going to go,.'' A coach who likes to build things In 13 seasons at West Liberty, Crutchfield took a program that had won four games the season before he took over and compiled a record of 359–61 with six trips to the Elite Eight. A sucker for reclamation projects, he moved to Nova Southeastern, which was coming off a six-win season in 2017. By Crutchfield's second year there, the Sharks were in the Elite Eight. This week, they are going for their third trip to the final and second national title in three years. Not bad for a program that lost four players to bigger programs offering better name, image and likeness compensation deals after the Sharks went undefeated in 2023. In Division II, schools can offer some scholarship help and some NIL money. They can't compete with what's happening at the next level up. Crutchfield wonders how much longer he'll be able to keep rebuilding in today's atmosphere. He's not ready to stop trying. 'I'm kind of old school,' he said. 'I like to develop players into a system. I think that's the way to win.'
