Skains leaving Tarpons for Cecilia
April 5, 2016
Annette Charpentier
April 7, 2016
For the first time in more than a decade, Nicholls State University is looking for a men’s basketball coach.
Colonels Athletic Director Rob Bernardi confirmed this week that the school has parted ways with longtime coach J.P. Piper – the veteran head man who’s led the program for the past 12 seasons.
Piper posted an 11-23 record in 2015-16, including a 6-12 mark in Southland Conference play. For his career, Piper was 132-224, while leading the Colonels to the SLC Tournament in eight-straight seasons.
Bernardi said Piper wasn’t fired, but was at the end of his contract, and the decision was made not to renew or extend his deal. Piper’s assistant coaches are running the program’s day-to-day operations while waiting on a new coach to be in place.
The athletic director said a national search is ongoing, and interest is expected to be high in the job.
“It’s not an easy decision – it never is,” Bernardi said. “Those are always difficult decisions to make. We have to look at the entire 12 years and make a determination of if the program is headed where we want it to go. After doing that, we determined that a change was made. I think that overall, we hoped there would be more success with our men’s basketball program, because that’s a very, very important sport that’s vital to our athletic program.”
For Piper, the failure to consistently compete for the Southland Conference crown appears to have been his undoing.
A longtime high school head coach at The Dunham School from 1994-2002, Piper started in Thibodaux during the 2002-03 season as an assistant coach under Ricky Blanton – the man that he eventually replaced in 2004-05 to become head coach.
Piper’s tenure started slow. The Colonels posted just a 33-82 record in his first four seasons, including an 18-46 mark in Southland competition.
But after the early struggles, Nicholls basketball rose and had success.
In 2008-09, Piper led the Colonels to a 20-win season – his only winning season in Thibodaux. Two years later, the Colonels were 14-14 and 8-8 in Southland play, while finishing fourth in the league.
During his tenure, Piper helped cleaned up the school’s poor Academic Performance Rate scores. He also coached several eventual pros.
“There were some very good things that J.P. and his staff did. There’s no questioning or doubting that,” Bernardi said.
But after turning around the program, the Colonels have been to take that next leap forward.
In 2014-15, Nicholls was 10-19 with a 7-11 record in the Southland – a squad that had no seniors.
With everyone back in 2015-16, the Colonels had high hopes, but still struggled.
They opened Southland play just 3-12, which put the team in danger of missing postseason.
A source in the Nicholls Athletic Department told The Times during the struggles that Piper was “coaching for his job” in the back-stretch of the season. The source said that athletic officials were growing impatient with the team’s inability to compete with the Southland’s best teams. Those struggles were perhaps even more disappointing, because they came during a time that the Colonels opened their brand-new locker room facility – a long-anticipated project that Piper had pushed for.
The Colonels rallied and won three-straight to end the season, before winning their opening-round game in the Southland Tourney. But the late-year push wasn’t enough to earn Piper another season to show that he’s the right guy for the job.
Bernardi said the decision to make a move on from Piper comes during a time when Nicholls has university-wide momentum – a surge that the AD hopes men’s basketball can get in on in the future.
Bernardi pointed to the successes that football coach Tim Rebowe has had early in his tenure, mentioning the excitement that the new coach has brought to the program as proof that the community is willing to support Nicholls athletics.
The Colonels’ AD also said that he’s proud of Nicholls baseball, softball, women’s basketball and soccer teams – all of which have emerged from the Southland cellar in the past decade to a current position of prominence.
“There’s momentum in those sports. There’s passion. There’s interest,” Bernardi said. “I’m not sure that momentum was there in men’s basketball.”
Bernardi added that he wants the team’s new coach to possess a lot of the same traits that the school’s other successful coaches have.
He said he wants someone who will recruit the area tirelessly, and someone who will be willing to have a hands-on approach in reaching out to the fan base.
Bernardi said he’d prefer that the new coach have head coaching experience, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be at the college level.
“If you’re going to have success at Nicholls, you have to be someone who’s intent on recruiting hard,” Bernardi said. “That’s something that doesn’t happen in recruiting season only. We need it to be a 365-day a year job. That’s what we need – someone who can really recruit, and someone who is committed to the great athletes in the area.”
Bernardi said he hopes to have a new coach in place by early-to-mid-May. He added that interest is high.
“My phone has not stopped,” he said. “We’re happy with the response we’ve seen thus far.” •
