Sweet success at EOU
You can take the basketball player out of Spokane, but you can’t take Spokane out of the player.
When you’re having the kind of success Ryan Looney is, why try.
The former Central Valley basketball standout completed his fourth season as head men’s basketball coach at his college alma mater, Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. His 2007-08 season was the most successful in Mountaineers basketball history. Looney’s squad posted a 26-6 record, captured the Cascade Collegiate Conference title for the first time in 38 years, and advanced to play in the NAIA Division II national tournament for the first time – winning their opening round game against Edward Waters before falling to College of the Ozarks in the second round.
For his efforts, Looney was named the Cascade Collegiate Conference Coach of the Year.
It always means a little more, and success tastes a little sweeter, when you find it at your alma mater.
“There’s a little extra motivation when that’s the situation,” Looney said. “When I took the job four years ago I knew some pretty special things could be created. I just didn’t think it could happen so fast.”
Looney’s career has been on a steady, upward path.
At Central Valley he was part of a strong class of sophomores under coach Terry Irwin – blossoming early and finding success. Looney, Kyle Latta, Jeremy Mort and Paul Allen were three-year starters, winning a seventh-place trophy at the state Class 4A tournament as juniors as well as a pair of back-to-back GSL titles before they were through.
“A lot of what I learned about the game of basketball goes back to what I learned from coach Irwin,” Looney said. “He’s a big reason why I wanted to become a coach. We’ve stayed in touch over the years. We e-mail regularly and talk on the phone often. Now that he’s moved to Montana, he’s always in the stands whenever we play a team over there.”
Looney went on to play four years at Eastern Oregon, where he met and married his wife, former EOU cross country and track standout Julianna Morris. The couple had their first child just six weeks ago – putting an exclamation point on a truly memorable year.
As a coach, Looney went first to the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, then a season as an assistant at North Idaho College.
“One of the coaches I worked with at Wisconsin got the head job at the University of Minnesota Moorhead, Stu Engen, and I went there to be his assistant,” Looney said. “Stu is one of the finest coaches I’ve ever worked with and we stay in touch.”
When the Eastern Oregon job opened four years ago, Looney landed his first head coaching job. Once he returned to La Grande, he turned to someone he knew well and trusted for help.
“My assistant coach is Isaac Williams,” he said. “We were teammates here and we played a lot together over the years. He’s a big part of the success we’ve found here.”
That first season was tough, Looney said, prompting him to clean house and make some major changes.
“There were some things that just weren’t working,” he explained. “We’ve been fortunate to have our own players in here since our second year and I think that’s made a big difference. We brought in some quality players.”
Looney’s 2005-06 season was the most successful at EOU since 1969 and the second-biggest turnaround in school history. The Mountaineers won at Albertson College for the first time since 1996 and scored their first win over Oregon Institute of Technology in 11 seasons.
The next year the team was 23-8 and reached the conference tournament finals.
“The key to the success we’ve had is in recruiting the kind of player who can have success at this level,” Looney said. “Part of that success has been our ability to recruit in Spokane.”
Five Mountaineers on last year’s squad were veterans of the Greater Spokane League, and a sixth graduated from Coeur d’Alene High.
Ferris grad Jeremy Templeton earned all-conference honors as the team’s point guard after his junior season last year. Josh Landsverk, a Shadle Park graduate, started 26 of 32 games as a 6-foot-8 post as a junior last year, with West Valley grad Kyle Janke filling in as a spot starter and key reserve 6-foot-6 senior post – averaging 11 points per game as one of only three players to average in double figures.
Sophomores Beau Azadganian, from Gonzaga Prep, and Nate Bligh, from Coeur d’Alene, both saw playing time, as did freshman Nick Ambrose, a 6-5 post from Looney’s high school alma mater.
“I think the key for this team last year was the fact that we took a team trip to Costa Rica over the summer,” the coach said. “Instead of disbanding over the summer, we came together, practiced together and then went down there to play four games against teams from their professional league. We won all four of our games, but more importantly, we spent all that time together and it was invaluable to us as a team.”
The Mountaineers’ leading scorer, all-conference wing Mark Carollo, has seen the trip pay off in another way.
“It’s pretty cool,” Looney beamed. “I have a professional contract sitting on my desk right this moment for Mark to go down and play with one of the teams we played last summer. They remembered him and called me and asked about signing him. He’s going to get a chance to go down there and play some professional basketball and I am so happy for him.”
Looney said he has no intention of allowing last year’s success to become a one-shot opportunity.
“We lost just one starter off last year’s team (Carollo),” he said. “We think we have a great team coming back. We’ll have to wait and see how things play out, but we should be pretty good.”