Part One – August Conversation with Brian Barone
(St. Louis, MO) – Southern Illinois Edwardsville has improved every season under head coach Brian Barone. The Cougars put together the best season in school history, winning 22 games, the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament and earned a bid to ‘The Big Dance’.
Brian Barone and I connect every August. This week we sat down to discuss last year’s success and its affect on this year’s team and we talked about his new-look roster. During Part One, we took a stroll down memory lane, looking at last season’s magical season. I also asked about how last year’s success would help or hurt this season’s team.
Barone has taught his teams to ‘find a way’ to succeed. He says the team is not relying on last year’s success to be able to achieve great things this year.
Barone’s first team won eight games. The Cougars improved to nine, eleven and then broke through for the program’s first Division 1 winning season with 19 victories in 2023. After seventeen wins in 2024, SIUE topped twenty-wins (22) and won the OVC Tournament and played in the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament.
All-time leading scorer Ray’Sean Taylor (1,962 points) has graduated. The OVC ‘Player of the Year’ is looking into professional opportunities and Barone has to adjust to ‘life-after-Taylor’. Barone says the biggest adjustment has to do with their relationship and time away from game action.
SIUE’s victory in Evansville almost seemed like the end to a ‘feel-good’ movie. Brian Barone is the son of a coach (father Tony) and says the OVC championship win was actually the culmination of an enormous amount of hard work. During the the closing moments of that tournament title, he says he was filled with memories of his parents and gratitude to those around him. He knew the championship was something of a commendation for building the SIUE program with the right building blocks.
Head to Valley Hoops Insider Podcasts for ‘Part One’ of our August interview with Brian Barone.
During Part Two we discuss the make up of this year’s roster. Barone has five returning players that played significant minutes last season. Two other players are returning from injury and the head coach has landed significant players from the portal.
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