Pat Flannery Hometown: Pottsville, Pa. Last College: Bucknell '80 Position: Head Coach Experience: 14th Season

Phone: 570-577-1267
Email: flannery@bucknell.edu

In 13 years as head coach at his alma mater, 2006 Hugh Durham Award recipient Pat Flannery has taken his Bucknell team to heights never before seen in the 112-year history of Bison Basketball, and he is committed to maintaining the program's status as one of the elite teams in the Patriot League and beyond, both on and off the floor.

A staple in the Lewisburg and surrounding communities, Flannery is the second-longest tenured head coach in program history, trailing only his own former coach, Charlie Woollum.

With 222 coaching wins at Bucknell, Flannery ranks second to the Hall of Famer Woollum (318) on the school's all-time list. No coach in the 17-year history of the Patriot League has won more conference games than Flannery, whose teams have won 70 percent of the time (119-51) against league competition.

Flannery, who received a contract extension in March 2006, presides over a proud program that is well-armed for college basketball's future with a sparkling home arena that opened in 2003 and a sixth year of recruiting with merit scholarships upcoming.

"With the leadership, excitement and respect that the Patriot League has developed since I have been the head coach at Bucknell, I believe this is a wonderful time to be in charge of this program," Flannery said. "I have a deep history and love for Bucknell University, and I feel like that feeling comes through to our student-athletes.

"The support from the university and the administration makes me feel proud of the job we have done here," Flannery added.

Those exciting changes paid dividends in 2004-05, when Bucknell finished 24-9, captured the Patriot League championship and defeated third-seeded Kansas 64-63 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

"The victory was almost surreal," said Flannery after taking the Bison to the first NCAA Tournament victory in program and league history. "It is proof that good things happen to those who work hard for it. The players in this program truly earned that victory, and it's a memory that they will carry forever."

The Bison surpassed even those lofty heights in 2005-06, winning a school-record 27 games against only five losses. Ranked in the top 25 for the first time in school history for one week in February and at the end of the season, Bucknell became the first team in Patriot League history to go unbeaten in league play at 14-0. The Bison repeated as league champs, earned a best-ever No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and knocked off Arkansas 59-55 to make it to the round of 32 for the second straight year.

Following the season he earned the Hugh Durham Award as the national "mid-major" coach of the year, as well his third Patriot League Coach of the Year honor.

Last season, the Bison put together a school-record 14-game winning streak and finished 22-9 overall and 13-1 in the Patriot League, but they were knocked off by Holy Cross in the Patriot League championship game. Despite the 22 wins and an RPI in the 70s, Bucknell was not selected as an at-large participant in either the NCAA Tournament or NIT.

Flannery made a mark on the Bucknell men's basketball program long before returning to Lewisburg in 1994-95 as the team's head coach. As a player, he captained the 1979-80 Bison team that finished 20-7 and ushered in an era of unprecedented success at Bucknell.

Flannery remains the only player ever to lead the Bison in assists for four straight years, and he finished his career with a total of 505 assists, which was a school record at the time and still ranks third in Bucknell history.

He also tallied 779 career points and boasted a career free-throw percentage of .787. Bucknell posted a 38-16 record over Flannery's final two seasons, and he captained the team each of those years.

An emotional, competitive point guard out of Pottsville High School, Flannery was actually the first recruit signed by then-rookie Bucknell coach Charlie Woollum in 1976. It was indeed fitting, then, that when Woollum left in April 1994 to return to his alma mater, William and Mary, after a marvelous 19-year career, Flannery was selected as his successor.

After serving as an assistant coach at Bucknell, Drexel and William & Mary in the 1980s, Flannery was the head coach at Lebanon Valley College for five years, leading that team to its first-ever national championship in 1994. The Dutchmen won the Division III title in thrilling fashion, with overtime victories in both the semifinals (93-83 over Wittenberg) and the championship game (66-59 over New York University). The title game win by the Dutchmen capped a 28-4 season in Flannery's fifth year as head coach at the Eastern Pennsylvania school, which recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of that national crown.

In his first year at Lebanon Valley, Flannery guided the Dutchmen to a 17-9 mark, the program's first winning season in 18 years, and proceeded to record five consecutive winning seasons. His 1992-93 team reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, before his 1993-94 team won the title. In five years at Lebanon Valley, Flannery compiled an overall record of 95-44 (.683) and earned the 1994 Division III Coach-of-the-Year Award from the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

In October 2005 Flannery was inducted into the Lebanon Valley Athletics Hall of Fame, and coincidentally he went in alongside Mike Rhoades, the team captain of the national championship team and currently the head coach at Randolph-Macon College.

Flannery's appointment as Bucknell's 19th men's basketball head coach in 1994 capped a tumultuous two-month stretch. His wife, Patti, gave birth to the couple's first son, Ryan, in between the national championship and Flannery's hiring at Bucknell. The couple had their second child, Jesse, 11 years ago.

"At the time of my hiring, I was coming off two of the biggest things in my life," Flannery said. "If it wasn't my alma mater, and wasn't a school with this kind of philosophy, I wouldn't have moved. The philosophy of the Patriot League is the philosophy of my coaching. I always wanted a place that was academically oriented. I was very happy (at Lebanon Valley), but the people here got me excited.

In his 13 seasons as coach at his alma mater, Flannery and the Bison program have lived up to those high expectations. He has created an atmosphere in which his players have been successful and he is again giving back to the school that gave him an opportunity in 1976. After three straight 20-win seasons -- a first in Bucknell annals -- his career record now stands at 317-202 (.611) overall and 222-159 (.583) at Bucknell.

Flannery began his coaching career at Bucknell in 1994-95 by guiding the Bison to an 11-3 final league mark and earning Patriot League Coach of the Year honors. He was the first Patriot League coach to earn such honors in his opening season with a program. The award was especially sweet for Flannery, considering the Bison had opened the year 0-8, before winning 13 of their final 19 games to collect a share of the regular season title. In 1995-96, Bucknell was again solid in league play, going 8-4 in Patriot games, and finishing the season with an overall record of 17-11. Included in those 17 wins was one of the school's biggest victories of all time, when the Bison knocked off Alabama, 72-64, at the Cessna Holiday Classic at Wichita State.

Flannery earned Patriot League Coach of the Year honors for the second time in 1996-97, after directing his squad to an 18-11 overall record, a 9-3 league mark and a berth in the league championship game. Non-league victories at Princeton and Air Force, plus a pair of wins over defending PL champ Colgate were but a few of the highlights from that magnificent campaign. Bucknell was one of just four schools (joining California, Indiana and North Carolina) to knock off Princeton in 1996-97.

In 1997-98, Bucknell slipped to 13-15 overall, due in large part to a grueling non-league schedule that included games against Iowa, Penn State, Princeton and Pittsburgh. Within the league, the Bison were again solid at 8-4.

His 1998-99 team started slowly, but turned it on down the stretch, winning 13 of its last 16 games before falling to Lafayette in the Patriot League championship game, 67-63. The Bison were 9-3 in the PL during the regular season.

The 2003-04 squad featured one of the youngest lineups in school history with three freshmen and two sophomores starting, but the Bison steadily improved throughout the course of the season and finished with a 9-5 league record. Bucknell eliminated three-time defending PL champion Holy Cross in the opening round of the conference tournament before falling in the semifinals.

In the 2005-06 Patriot League Tournament, after knocking out Lafayette and American in the first two rounds at Sojka Pavilion, the Bison won 61-57 at Holy Cross for their first league title of any kind since 1989. They repeated the feat a year later, sweeping Army, American and Holy Cross before sellout crowds at Sojka Pavilion.

In addition to his outstanding teams, Flannery has tutored many standout individuals. He has coached a First Team All-Patriot League player in 11 of his first 12 years at Bucknell, and he helped stars J.R. Holden, Bryan Bailey, Boakai Lalugba, Charles Lee, Chris McNaughton and Donald Brown land professional playing opportunities overseas. Lee, a 2006 graduate, signed with the NBA's San Antonio Spurs and played with the team throughout training camp in 2006. This summer, Holden helped the Russian national team win the EuroBasket championship and qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Flannery is very well respected by both his players and his peers in the coaching profession. He was selected to speak at the National Association of Basketball Coaches annual convention in Seattle, Wash., in 1995, held in conjunction with the NCAA Division I Final Four festivities. His teams have been actively involved in Coaches Versus Cancer, a program sponsored by the NABC and the American Cancer Society which raises money for cancer research, education, and patient services. The Bison, in fact, played in the CVC Classic for the first time in 2005 at Syracuse's Carrier Dome.

Under Flannery, the Bison have played a very active role in the community. The team has volunteered its time to Central Pennsylvania youth basketball organizations, the Donald Heiter Community Center in Lewisburg and the Janet Weis Children's Hospital at Geisinger Medical Center.

In January 2003, Flannery for the second time took his team to his hometown of Pottsville to play at historic Martz Hall. The Bison played Penn there in 1997, and in 2003 hosted Niagara on the floor where Flannery played his prep ball. Dubbed the Kids Classic, the game raised funds for youth basketball in the Pottsville area.

Flannery has also taken three Bucknell teams on summer overseas tours. In 1996 Bucknell went to Denmark and Sweden, in 2000 the team visited Italy and Croatia, and in 2005 the squad toured Ireland and England.