When people talk about Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching tree, the bigger names come up first. Guys like Tommy Amaker, Quin Snyder, and Bobby Hurley. But there are others, of course, and one who should get discussed more is Kenny Blakeney.
Blakeney has been at Howard since the year before Covid hit, and you can reasonably toss those years out.
His first season, Howard was 4-29, which was not a surprise in a transitional year. During the Covid season, Howard played just five games, finishing 1-4. As we always
say, you shouldn’t hold a Covid record against anyone.
Since then, Blakeney’s teams have finished 16-13, 22-13, 18-17, 12-20, and 24-11 last season.
If you take those first two years out, Blakeney has a career record of 92-74, which is not bad for an HBCU, considering most HBCUs lack the resources that Power Conference schools have.
However, Blakeney has done well, including winning Howard’s first-ever NCAA tournament game last season.
More interestingly, he has shown a lot of imagination in how he approaches a program with some limitations.
For one, he tried to sell equity in Howard basketball. The school shot that down, but with the sport moving more and more towards a professional model, he gets points for trying something different.
And just on Thursday, Blakeney announced that retired NBA great John Wall will become Howard’s President of Basketball Operations.
That’s quite a coup for Howard. Wall retired with the Washington Bullets, but he has no particular ties to Howard. Having a name like that associated with what has always been a minor presence in college basketball is a big deal. It shows, again, that Blakeney is pushing against perceived limits, and is doing everything he can think of to take Howard to a higher level. Very impressive.
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