On the occasion of Lewis Preston being named the new head coach of Kennesaw State Owls basketball, SB Nation Atlanta asked Black Shoe Diaries, our Penn St. Nittany Lions blog, for their thoughts on the matter. Though Preston is best known for his role on Billy Donovan's Florida Gators teams, he's spent his past three seasons in Happy Valley.
How did Penn State fans feel about the job Preston did?
Preston was only with Penn State for three years, and it's hard to judge the impact he had here. Two of those years the team was absolutely horrible, and in the third year they barely made the NCAA tournament. Historically, he has been really good at coaching up big men when he was at Notre Dame and Florida, but at Penn State he didn't get much talent to work with in his tenure. It seems like he was a pretty good recruiter as Penn State has some pretty good big men coming in with the next recruiting class.
Has he shown any signs of head coaching material or potential concerns?
He has flirted with head coaching jobs in the past. He was an assistant coach under Billy Donovan when Florida won back-to-back national championships and got a lot of attention then. Perhaps too much attention. Supposedly he went on a few job interviews and Donovan got tired of him looking around. The two guys didn't see eye-to-eye on some things, and that's how Preston wound up in Happy Valley. Some Penn State fans were pretty happy at the time hoping Preston was coming in to be groomed to take over for Ed DeChellis. Guess that's not happening now.
What's his personality like around players, media, and fans?
He kept a pretty low profile while he was at Penn State. You never really heard too much about him in the media. I can't say I ever heard anything bad about him, though.Anything else you'd like to share? The players didn't talk about him much and the media didn't pay much attention to him. He'll be a big loss for Penn State though as he seemed like a solid coach.
For more Kennesaw State sports, join SB Nation Atlanta and visit SB Nation’s Kennesaw State hub.