Let it begin. Isiah Thomas is so terrible as a coach/GM that… [insert your favorite Knicks joke here.]
Look, it’s completely unfair to expect that Isiah Thomas would be able to come into a college environment like Florida International and ever immediately turn it into a winner. But we expected that he could manage to craft together some highly-rated JuCos and a smattering of returnees to beat an NAIA team in an early-season exhibition game.
Isiah Thomas lost his coaching debut at Florida International on Wednesday night when Northwood, an NAIA school coached By Rollie Massimino, beat the Panthers 71-61 in an exhibition game.
A Rollie Massimino sighting! Hopefully they’re partying in the bars along the Main Line tonight to honor their championship coach’s sticking it to Thomas, even in a game that doesn’t officially count (ok, unlikely).
As for Northwood, it’s an odd amalgam of higher learning, with campuses in Michigan, Texas, Florida and SWITZERLAND. The Michigan Northwood school is in NCAA D2 and has a mascot of Timberwolf, while the Texas (Knights) and Florida (Seahawks) schools are NAIA. Irrespective of where their campuses are, Massimino may have just given the school its greatest rush of media attention in its 38-year history. Enjoy it, fellas.