5-2-24 - Mo Egger with Brian Neal

Brian Neal returns to the tri-state as the Head Coach of the Thomas Moore Women's Basketball program, a position he's held before. Brian joined us on ESPN1530. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
It's twenty five away from five o'clock. This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Moeger.
Thomas Moore University announced earlier today theyhave a new women's basketball coach.
It's a very familiar name and face, both to the Thomas Moore community and
to the women's basketball community here inthe greater Cincinnati area. Brian Neil is

(00:23):
returning to Thomas Moore. He hada very very successful stint in his first
go around as head coach. Obviouslyspent years as well as the women's basketball
coach at Xavier University, spent lastseason at Southeastern, and he is coming
back to coach Thomas Moore. Youcan't come home again, so to speak.

(00:44):
It's good to have you, coach. Welcome back home. How are
you. It's great to be home. I feel like I'm full circle and
it's just great to be back ina tri state area, that's for sure.
Well, the good news is,you know, you take over a
program and you don't have very bigshoes to fill. Yeah. Just probably
the most successful coaching women's basketball history, you know, if you just go

(01:06):
by percentages, Yeah, it's justexactly right. Uh So, kind of
kind of walk us through the lastfew weeks this process which has ended with
you coming back to Thomas Moore.Well, you know, the coaching carousel
is very unique. I never dreamedthat the dominos would fall like they do.
I took a job in Florida SoutheasternUniversity and a super place, very

(01:29):
good program, and kind of thoughtthat might be it for me. And
then you know, then NKU opensup, and then you find out Jeffson
the mix there, and next thingyou know, this has opened up.
And so you know, luckily Ihave you know, great relationships, you
know, with with Kerry Conner andsome of the folks here with Thomas Moore,
and we were able to I thinkshorten up the search a little bit

(01:51):
at least in my view. Butit was just, uh, it was
just something I've been trying to getback to the Tristate area in all honestly
for five years. I mean,you know, I never really wanted to
move away just to coach, butsometimes the care still spitch out. You
don't know where you're coming off.And so to be able to come back
to a place like Thomas Moore,a program that is so respected i mean
across the country and you go outthere and everybody really knows who Thomas Moore

(02:15):
is and what they've done over theyears, and so it's just it's just
a just an honor, a privilegeto be back. This is this is
late in the process. It's it'sMay the second. What sort of challenges
does the timing of this present toyou? Well, it doesn't. There's
always a challenge. And then youknow, everybody worries about getting the next
kid in. We we certainly needto get in the portal and find a

(02:37):
player two. But the main challengesall of our young ladies have just left.
So I got to meet with theteam. But you know, starting
to build the relationships that are soimportant to a team's success is really what
I need to get started on.And that you know, unfortunately that's gonna
be on zoom calls and telephone callsand things like that. But recruiting is
next, figuring out our staff situation, those those are all our priorities of

(03:00):
the next couple of weeks. Sowith the players that you for for lack
of a better word, and herringyou you're gonna chat with him, You're
going to talk with them, Butwhat what can you do when when's the
next time you can get them individuallyin the gym. Well, it'll be
a while. We can get themtogether for our camps of the summer and
we can hang out and do somestuff like that, but we we really
won't be able to do anything onthe floor until school starts, you know,

(03:21):
in the fall or late summer.Uh, walk us through what it
was like. I mean, look, you you did a killer job in
your first go around to Thomas Moore, and and it just kept building from
there with with coach hands and obviouslyyou were a part of it. When
he came back for the one seasonto work under him. What was it
like watching the foundation that you helpedbuild a Thomas Moore get built upon and
then stacked upon even further. Oh, it just just a tremendous amount of

(03:45):
pride. You know, Jeff Han'sone of my best friends in the world,
and just you know, I wasso thrilled when he got it.
I knew he would do. Imean, nobody could have dreamed he would
accomplish what he did. But youknow, just so much pride in this
place. And I tell you so, when I guess the tweet whatever hit
this morning, my phone started blowingup and from from the Thomas More Nation,

(04:05):
former players and coach. It justfans. It was just it's been
all day and it was just,you know, we are not the reds
of the Bengals, but the peoplethere, there are a lot of people
who think that Thomas Moore women's basketballis really important, and it was just
a need to be back a partof that today. Uh, walk me
through the process of reaching out.Where do you begin recruiting stuff like that?

(04:27):
How's this? How's this going towork? Again? In particular considering
the late timing of this, Well, I have I'm going to call all
of the commits as soon as wego to the phone here, and I'll
start that process. We just hadthe press conference and doing this, and
then I got some phone calls tomake. I got a couple of other
kids. I'm aware of the possiblerecruits that I know of that I'm gonna
call, and so we're just gonna, you know, just go through and

(04:49):
try. I don't want to rush, you don't want to make it.
You don't want to make a mistakegoing too fass, But I want,
you know, take a break,I take a breath and just start to
get to those and people explain whatwe're going to try to do here and
then find some good fits for ourprogram. You'll talk to young ladies from
this general area. I'm sure,but I mean, you know, Thomas

(05:09):
Moore, it's such a respected program. It's important to so many people.
So you know, you talk toa player who doesn't know Thomas Moore doesn't
know in northern Kentucky. Give mean idea of some of the questions that
you often get, that you expectto get and how you answer them.
Well, I sell obviously the tradition, and we've been selling that for a
long time here. But we sellthe area. You know, you know

(05:30):
if you don't know it the greatestsince in that area, of course,
you know it's near near all ofour hearts. But you sell the area
and the school and all those typesof things. And in recruiting, mod
I know you've talked to a millioncoaches of the years. You don't get
everybody. You get told no,whether you get told yes. But if
you do your job and you doyour homework, you find the ones that
fit you. And and that's reallyimportant. I don't try to force it

(05:54):
just because you're talented. It maynot be a good fit. And I've
learned some of those hard lessons overthe years. So it's just talent is
and everything. You have to findthe people that fit your personality and want
to play and respect the things thatyou're preaching and teaching, and so just
take our time start building those relationshipsand hopefully find a player too that'll they'll
get us back what we want tobe. This may be a dumb question.

(06:15):
When you were the head coach ofThomas Moore the first go around,
this was a Division three program.It's now a Division two program. Give
me an idea of maybe some ofthe way that some of the ways that
changes things. Well, it's everylevel you go up, it gets tougher,
the coaching gets better, the playersare bigger, stronger, faster.
Your margin for air is certainly smaller. So, yes, it's the challenge,

(06:39):
and I think it's a really youknow, with coach hands leaving one
more year before we're full membership inthe Division two, it's just kind of
like a really good opportunity to startat another phase and just figure out everything
that's going to take to be successfulat this level. It's been a great
program for a long time. You'rea huge reason as to why and if
it continue us, obviously you'll bea big reason as to why moving forward.

(07:02):
Congratulations, welcome back to the TriState and we'll do it again soon.
Coach, thanks so much. Allright, but I appreciate you.
You got it. Brian Neil,the new women's basketball coach at Thomas Moore,
spent seven seasons as the head coachof Thomas Moore and his final year
in twenty ten to twenty eleven,they go thirty and one and obviously a

(07:24):
program that the Jeff Hans took tonational championships and what he did at Thomas
Moore was a major reason why NKUwanted to hire him. And now Brian
Neil spent a number of years atXavier, was the coach when the Musketeers
moved into the Big East, dida very good job rebuilding that program amid
some pretty painful obstacles, and backat Thomas Moore where he had so much
success in the late two thousand's andearly twenty tens. All right, it

(07:47):
is eighteen away from five o'clock.We are Pat Brennan's going to be on
the show at five to twenty doesPat does Pat think we're just going to
talk about FC Cincinnati. Is heexpecting to be ambushed? What's what's Pat
expecting here? Do we know heknows? He knows? I want to
know about the blupenza thing here.Everybody's big man and he broke us.

(08:07):
Do we know how he broke hisjaw? That's weird. I mean like
he could have been in some sortof accident. But if like somebody you
know, showed up and they gota broken jaw, you're assuming fight,
right, somebody caught him off goout or something. Yeah, said the
wrong thing to the wrong person.Maybe Pat knows? Uh seventeen away from

(08:33):
five o'clock, uh five one threeseven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight
six six seven oh two three sevenseven six. This is ESPN fifteen thirty
Cincinnati Sports station. Looking to stepup your Mother's Day Fly