Talk about culture shock, Part I:
Eric Olen, for the first time in a coaching career that began in 2004, switched jobs, leaving the surf and sand of placid UC San Diego for the high-altitude, high-expectation fishbowl that is New Mexico.
Talk about culture shock, Part II:
New Mexico, which won the Mountain West Conference regular season title last season as well as a game in the NCAA tournament against Marquette, is now essentially an expansion team as the Lobos lost every player from last year’s roster as well as every coach.
“Our athletic trainer is the only person remaining,” Olen told Hoops HQ with a slight laugh.
Welcome, then, to the Lobos’ reimagined Land of Enchantment, where Olen has huge shoes to fill with Mountain West Coach of the Year Richard Pitino having left for Xavier and conference player of the year Donovan Dent transferring to UCLA.
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All after Olen led UCSD to 30 wins and an NCAA tournament berth, where they threw a scare at Michigan, in the Tritons’ first year of eligibility after transitioning from Division II. And in the final year of the Mountain West’s current configuration, what with San Diego State, Boise State, Utah State, Fresno State and Colorado State leaving for the Pac-12 to join fellow newcomers Gonzaga and Texas State as well as conference holdovers Washington State and Oregon State.
“It’s been a whirlwind and a new experience for me,” Olen said. “We’ve had to teach everybody everything.
So the big question is how quickly we can gel and come together. There’s so much newness, but the bar is high. “That’s part of why I wanted to be here.”
Olen, who went 240-119 in 11 years at UCSD, including 51-17 overall and 33-7 in the Big West the last two seasons, spent the spring and early summer stocking that bare Albuquerque cupboard.
He brought a couple of familiar faces with him as 6-foot-6, 195-pound guard Chris Howell (5.6 points per game, 3.8 rebounds, 3.0 assists) and 6-foot-7, 200-pound forward Milos Vicentic, a former D-II All-American who suffered a season-ending foot injury in the Tritons’ season opener last season, transferred in from UCSD.
Plus, Howell’s older brother Mikey, who starred at point guard at UCSD from 2018-21, is on Olen’s staff in Albuquerque.
So there will be some semblance of familiarity with Olen’s system, right?
“The secret sauce has always been just how much, not only, coach’s desire to win, but also his drive to win,” Chris Howell said earlier this summer. “And bringing everybody along [with] him. That’s something special about coach — he’s able to truly, not just inspire us, but really just motivate us to be better players, be better people. I think that’s what really takes coach Olen’s programs over the top.”
Other portal signees include guards Tajavis Miller (10.6 points, 4.5 boards at North Dakota State), Deyton Albury (7.8 points on 54.8 percent shooting for Utah State) and Kevin Patton, Jr., a USC transfer who averaged 9.8 points for Steve Lavin’s San Diego Toreros two years ago.
Olen hit the international market in signing 6-foot-9 Croatian forward Tomislav Buljian, who averaged 12.5 points and 8.8 rebounds for his Croatian Premier Liga club team in Zagreb, and 6-foot-8 French guard Timéo Pons, who averaged 7.4 points and 2.9 rebounds in the recent FIBA U19 World Cup.
The Lobos also poached UC Irvine commit Sir Marius Jones, a multi-time Sacramento player of the year who followed former Anteaters assistant Michael Wilder to New Mexico, where he joined Olen’s staff.
Olen said he wants his scheme to not only utilize his personnel’s versatility, but also to run, to take advantage of the Lobos’ built-in homecourt altitude advantage at the Pit, which is about 5,100 feet above sea level.
Still, Olen says the learning curve will be on a “game by game” basis.
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It all has a cautious New Mexico fanbase wondering how this new pack of Lobos stacks up against the team that went 27-8 last season, 17-3 in the Mountain West and played in its second straight Big Dance.
Especially with the departures of guards Tru Washington (11.1 points, 2.1 steals), who went to Miami, and Dent (20.4 points, 6.4 assists) and forwards Filip Borovicanin (5.9 points) and Jovan Milicevic (3.8 points), both of whom followed Pitino to Xavier.
The Lobos averaged 81.2 points last season, the Tritons 79.8.
Building a roster from scratch is difficult but may have its benefits, given that you’re in complete charge of its makeup. “That can be a silver lining,” Olen said. “But it’s certainly not something we want to do every year. But there’s pros and cons, right? It’s our roster. We built it. So we like that.
“But we do realize that this program is a special place, regardless of who’s in our conference, whoever our opponents are.”
Olem, whose coaching career began as an assistant at UCSD in 2004 before he became the Tritons head coach in 2013, was a hot candidate during the offseason’s coaching carousel.
And while many may think the Lobos, a founding member of the Mountain West in 1999, would be tweaked at being left behind in a depleted conference with UNLV, Air Force, UNR, Hawaii, San Jose State, Wyoming and newcomers UTEP, Grand Canyon and UC Davis, Olen sees it differently.
After all, he’s coming from the Big West.
“It’s a fantastic league full of fantastic players,” Olen said. “We’re excited about being in this version of the Mountain West. We get at least one opportunity to go to San Diego State and Utah State and Boise State. Those are all great atmospheres.”
Olen laughed. “There’s nothing I can do about realignment,” he said. “That’s above my pay grade.”
That would be culture shock, Part III.
