A 12-day “national search” for the next head coach of Saint Peter’s basketball ended up boiling down for a 15-mile ride across the Bayonne Bridge.
Bashir Mason of Jersey City, who has guided Wagner to eternal success over the past 10 seasons, is being hired to replace Shaheen Holloway at the helm of a program put in the national spotlight by an epic Cinderella running for the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight, USA DAY NETWORK New Jersey has learned.
The question now is whether Mason can stop or slow down the emigration of Peacocks who want to transfer. Sniper Doug Edert, who has already committed to Bryant and four other important undergraduates – guards Daryl Banks and Matt Lee and strikers Hassan and Fousseyni Drame – is in the transfer portal.
Saint Peter’s had a chance for a smooth transition after Holloway signed a contract with Seton Hall on March 30 – a move that everyone saw coming in good time. Holloway told reporters he hoped the Peacocks’ core would stay together during a rapid transition. But St. Peter’s brass chose instead a national search, and in the transfer portal world, it opened the door to revenue on the roster.
A promotion of top assistant Ryan Whalen (whom Holloway hailed as a “coach in waiting” last month, and who had the strong backing of the players) did not materialize. Another local candidate who would have taken the job with Holloway’s approval stamp, Seton Hall associate head coach Grant Billmeier, never received an offer and followed former pirate skipper Kevin Willard to Maryland.
When it comes to Mason, the credentials are there. The 38-year-old, who played for Dan Hurley at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark and later starred in Drexel, was hired by Hurley as an assistant to Wagner and succeeded him when Hurley moved to Rhode Island in 2012. Since then, Mason has guided the Seahawks to three Northeast Conference titles in regular season (in 2016). , 2018 and 2021) and three second places. His overall record at Wagner is 165-130 (.559), with an NEC mark of 111-67 (.624). In the most recent season, the Seahawks went 21-6 overall and finished in second place in the league with 15-3.
Within the metropolitan area, Mason is highly regarded as both a coach and a person. When chaos erupted during last month’s NEC tournament final at Bryant, where Bryant student fans harassed family members of Wagner’s players to the point that it caused a 40-minute break in action as the Wagner contingent fled the gym, Mason won outright praise for bringing his team back on the field to end the game in an orderly manner. In an independent but touching gesture, he wore the jersey of the injured prominent striker Elijah Ford during that match.
The only blow to Mason’s resume, for those who prefer to judge a three – day coach in March, was his lack of NCAA tournaments. Hans Seahawks won a NIT game in 2016, beating top-seeded St. Bonaventure out in the opening round.
His first job is to recruit Peacocks into the portal as well as star forward KC Ndefo, who has a fifth year left of eligibility and can become a pro or move pretty much anywhere. The bigger questions: Could Mason build on the momentum that Holloway established, as interest in the program is at a record high? Can he convince university officials to invest more in MAAC’s most resource-challenging athletic department?
The hiring of Mason may have a domino effect on Seton Hall. Whalen, who helped build Saint Peter’s as Holloway’s right hand man for four years, is likely to end up with his staff at Seton Hall now; there is no way Holloway would let him writhe in the wind, unemployed or underemployed. Another Saint Peter’s assistant, the affiliated New York City recruiter Rasheen Davis, is another strong candidate to follow Holloway to the hall.
And current Pirate assistant coach Donald Copeland, the lone team-mate from Willard’s staff, would certainly be considered to replace Mason at Wagner.
Copeland, a former All-Big East guard at the Pirates, broke into coaching as a Wagner graduate assistant under Mason and served as an assistant coach there from 2017-2021 before returning to his alma mater. He played an integral role in compiling the Seahawks’ current list.
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voters. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.