Evans accepts Calif. job

<blockquote><p align=justify><b>Ex-Cajuns coach: San Francisco offers better chance to win</b>

SAN FRANCISCO –– Jessie Evans stood at a podium at the University of San Francisco on Thursday and explained why he’s leaving his job at Louisiana to assume the same position at the University of San Francisco: He thinks he has a better chance to win.

“One of the reasons I’m here is the tradition at the university,” Evans said. “They’ve won national championships, and we’ve got to get it done again.”

The Dons haven’t won the NCAA title since

Bill Russell led the team to back-to-back championships in 1955 and 1956, but Evans believes he has a better chance of competing for that prize in San Francisco than he did in Lafayette.

The college would not disclose the terms of Evans’ new contract, beyond saying it is a multi-year deal. Evans’ annual salary at UL Lafayette was $170,000. It’s believed USF will pay Evans a base salary of more than $200,000.

In seven years of coaching the Ragin’ Cajuns, Evans compiled an overall record of 132-81, with a

Sun Belt Conference mark of 77-32.

Last year, UL Lafayette finished 20-9, and with a 12-3 league record won it’s first regular-season Sun Belt Conference title.

The Ragin’ Cajuns were a No. 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament, where they lost their first-round game to North Carolina State.

At USF, Evans takes over a program that went 139-123 with one NCAA Tournament appearance in nine seasons under head coach Phil Mathews. Mathews was fired after this past season in which the Dons went 17-14, but finished fourth in the West Coast Conference with a record of 7-7.

Evans doesn’t plan to waste a lot of time rebuilding.

“When I went to Louisiana we had just completed a national title run at the University of Arizona,” said Evans, whose nine years as an assistant coach for Lute Olson culminated with the Wildcats’ NCAA championship in 1997.

To help him reach his goal, Evans said he’d like to bring Cajun assistant coach Jimmy Williams with him to San Francisco.

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Regardless, Evans will try not to stray from the coaching philosophy he followed at UL Lafayette.

“I like to win, that’s first,” Evans said. “I like to get up and down, and I like to extend the floor a little bit. We do like to play 94 feet.”

That message went over well with the returning Dons players.

“That’s the way I love to play and that’s the way this team loves to play,” said Jerome Gumbs, a guard who will be a junior next season.

“His credentials speaks for itself,” Gumbs added. “He did what he did at Arizona, and UL Lafayette is like the Gonzaga of the Sun Belt Conference.”

Gumbs has close friends who played for Western Kentucky and Florida International University, “and they always talked about how UL Lafayette beats you, so I know he’s a good coach.”

Evans had little time to speak with his former Cajun players, save to tell them in vague terms last week that he could be moving on. Evans said he called some of his players on Thursday to tell them of his decision to join USF, but had to leave messages on answering machines.

“It’s always hard when you leave a team like that,” Evans said. “That was my best team. Selfishly, I think it’s a Sweet 16 team if everything goes right.”

No one is ready to say the same thing about USF, which first must wrest WCC domination away from Gonzaga. As if that’s not hard enough, the Dons this coming season have to navigate through a nonconference schedule that includes Stanford and St. Joseph’s.

And on top of all that, Evans has to adjust to leaving Lafayette behind.

“There’s a part of me that’s sad, a part of me that will always bleed Cajun blue,” he said. “I’m a Ragin’ Cajun in my heart, but my heart’s in San Francisco now.”
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<blockquote><p align=justify>Evans hired as new San Francisco basketball coach

San Francisco's failed attempt to lure Gene Keady away from Purdue helped the Dons land their new coach.

San Francisco concluded its monthlong search for a basketball coach, hiring Jessie Evans away from Louisiana-Lafayette on Thursday.

"I knew they were committed to building a winning program when I saw them go after Gene Keady. That opened my eyes certainly," Evans said. "That was the main reason I got involved."

The Dons settled on Evans after their highly publicized run at Keady failed. While Evans lacks Keady's high profile, he has won a national championship as an assistant at Arizona and led Louisiana-Lafayette to the NCAA tournament this season.

"Jessie's a proven winner who's a proven recruiter," athletic director Bill Hogan said. "You don't get much better than that."

Now his task is rebuilding the tradition at San Francisco. The Dons went 17-14 last season, losing to Santa Clara in the second round of the West Coast Conference tournament. Phil Mathews was fired March 9 after nine seasons with the Dons. He took the team to one NCAA tournament.

"We'll always have great goals," Evans said. "Each and every year we'll set out to make postseason play. That will never change. We'll reach for new heights."

Evans spent seven years at Louisiana-Lafayette, leading the Ragin' Cajuns to two NCAA tournament berths and four 20-win seasons. The school went 20-9 and won the Sun Belt Conference regular-season and tournament titles last season before a first-round NCAA loss to North Carolina State.

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Evans was an assistant to Lute Olson during Arizona's run to the national championship in 1997. He also has been an assistant at Texas, Wyoming, San Diego State and Minnesota, earning a reputation as a talented recruiter while coaching 26 future NBA players.

"He knows what it takes to win," Dons guard John Cox said. "I haven't been to the postseason before and he's won a championship. He's a proven winner."

Evans said his first priority recruiting will be trying to keep some of the talented players in the San Francisco Bay area home.

San Francisco's administration expects Evans to build a program capable of competing with West Coast Conference power Gonzaga, the league's perennial champion. San Francisco recently made an aggressive financial commitment to its athletic programs, and Evans' hiring is considered a key element in the revitalization.

"First we have to make the postseason and then we need to do it consistently before we get to that level," Cox said. "Maybe it won't happen next year but within five years we should be there."

San Francisco boasts such prestigious basketball alumni as NBA greats Bill Russell, Bill Cartwright and K.C. Jones. The Dons won NCAA titles in 1955 and 1956, and the NIT in 1949.

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