Men’s basketball is heading into new, unfamiliar territory
Photo Courtesy of Larry Newman
Imagine that Cirque du Soleil just put on the most impressive, comprehensive and awe-inspiring acrobatic performance of all time. And then imagine being the act that has to follow them. That is the situation that new Chapman men’s basketball coach Dan Krikorian finds himself in.
The legendary Mike Bokosky, who spent 31 years as head of the program, retired this offseason. He left behind a legacy of 537 wins, easily the most in Chapman basketball history, five NCAA tournament appearances, two regular season Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) championships and two SCIAC playoff championships. Bokosky was one-of-one.
Krikorian isn’t somebody that was pulled off the street to fill Bokosky’s mountainous shoes, though. Rather, he has been the heir apparent to the throne for some time now. He is the strongest branch of the Bokosky coaching tree. If Terry Boesel, head athletic director at Chapman, could craft the perfect head coaching replacement he would’ve designed Krikorian.
“I fully believe that people that have worked with you, for you, deserve a chance to be promoted from within,” Boesel said. “The last couple years (Krikorian) started taking over more and more of the offense and the recruiting. So, I think it was a natural transition for him. We didn't really consider (anybody) on the outside. If Dan Krikorian wanted the job, it was his, because I think he earned that shot.”
Krikorian played under Bokosky from 2003 to 2007, graduating with a degree in business from Chapman, and had been an assistant coach for 11 years, essentially one-third of his predecessor's career. He already has over 250 games of experience at Chapman as a player and coach.
Because of his experience, this next act for the program, the first time somebody else has taken the stage in decades, might be a smoother transition than most would expect. When you have Bokosky-lite, a coach who knows the direction the team has been headed, suddenly pulling off the high-wire trick seems more doable.
“He's been at Chapman,” Boesel said. “He knows Chapman. So for him, he has one less thing to worry about, and that's getting to know what Chapman is. I think he's already got a step up on any new coach that we could hire coming from the outside, trying to figure out what type of student athlete excels here. He already knows that. I think that gives him a great running start to a successful season.”
This isn’t Krikorian’s first ever head coaching job either. He led Costa Mesa High School from 2009 to 2013, which adds even more depth to his qualifications for this job. He not only knows how basketball works in Southern California, but he values and loves being a coach.
“When I got into coaching 15 years ago, I felt it was what I was meant to do,” Krikorian said. “I love being around young people and building teams, and I think that being on a team is one of the best things that a person can do in their life. Just to be a part of something that's bigger than themselves, and to go through the ups and downs and all that goes with it. And I'm excited to now be at the helm of that and go through the ups and downs with a group of young men here at Chapman. And that excites me.”
Krikorian has spent close to half of his life within the Chapman community and with the men’s basketball program. There might not be a person who bleeds Panther colors more than him.
“I think that ultimately you make decisions (based) on a feeling that a place gives you,” Krikorian said. “Coming here for the first time (and) visiting the campus, there was just a feeling that I had, that I wanted to be here. It felt like home, like a second home to me. As I've grown and been here now from a player to assistant, now a head coach, it still gives me that feeling when I step on campus. It still gives me that feeling like this is where I'm supposed to be, or I'm meant to be.”
Even with his storied experience with the program and Bokosky’s system, the transition from assistant coach to head coach won’t be an easy one for Krikorian. He himself admitted that, with this being the first time he’ll head-up a college team, there will be an adjustment period.
“Sliding over 10 to 12 inches, from the assistant coach seat to the head coach seat, it is a change,” he said. “I want to be true to who I am and everything I do. I’m my own person, I'm my own coach, and I need to be true to that. I think that players feed off of that. If I try to be someone I'm not, or emulate somebody else that I know, or whoever it is, it doesn't come across authentically. The daily decisions that you make as a head coach are different (from) the daily decisions as an assistant.”
The biggest challenge for Krikorian will be finding the right balance between continuing the trajectory that Bokosky set the program on, and creating his own path. It’s almost contradictory in a sense, because with every new coach the program will inevitably change. Krikorian is hoping that making change doesn’t result in changing everything.
“I'm taking over a highly successful program,” he said. “I've been lucky to be here for the last 11 years of it, but over the last 30 plus years (Bokosky) built a highly respected program here in Southern California. And for me, it's not changing, it's just building. Taking the foundations that are here and trying to build on top of those foundations. I'm lucky that this is a job where I don't need to make major changes and major overhauls and do things completely differently, because there's been a lot of success. I'm going to be myself and do things that are going to be different just because I'm different. But the foundations that make teams and players and people successful, those aren't changing.”
There are a lot of subtleties that make the head coaching position different from being the assistant coach. These are details that Krikorian will discover and have to cope with during his first year. What doesn’t change is how basketball is played on the actual court. Krikorian has a wealth of knowledge on how to play technically sound and winning basketball.
One indicator of his deep knowledge of basketball is the podcast Slappin’ Glass. Krikorian, and former Chapman basketball player Patrick Carney, started it up in 2020 and it centers around the technical and tactical side of the game. According to Krikorian, it is a podcast by coaches and for coaches. It currently is the #1 coaching podcast in the world and they have worked with coaches from overseas, the collegiate level and even the National Basketball Association.
When Krikorian speaks about basketball, you feel compelled to listen.
“I love playing fast with great pace, sharing the ball, lots of player movement,” Krikorian said. “I think that players play harder when they're able to be connected as a group. We take pride, always have, in sharing the ball. When people come watch us play, I hope it's a fun, connected style of basketball to watch play. We play in a great conference, and every night is going to be a battle. I think that on both sides of the ball, we have an opportunity to be very competitive. I think that we have the athletes to be one of the better defensive teams in the conference, and that's my focus right now.”
The Chapman men’s basketball program has seen a wealth of respected, well-known and talented head coaches come and go. Walt Hazzard, who was an Olympic and NBA level player, took the team to two NCAA tournaments before leaving for the University of California, Los Angeles. Bob Boyd, who spent 13 seasons at the University of Southern California, didn’t have one winning season in three tries. Bokosky had been an assistant coach at the University of California, Irvine where he coached multiple future NBA talents, before leading Chapman through their transition from Division II to Division III basketball.
Krikorian doesn’t have the name recognition outside of coaching circles, or the Division I experience that past Chapman head coaches did. What he does have is a knowledge and love for the school deeper than anybody who has had the job before him. He now has the task of building on the greatness of Bokosky, as well as continuing the history of excellence that is Chapman basketball.
