Yes, it’s a completely new team. Yes, it’s a new league and a new school for him.
But Tobin Anderson isn’t going to let any of those factors lower expectations for him or Iona University.
“This is not a rebuild, this is a reload kind of thing,” he told The Post. “People ask me all the time [about our timeframe]. We want to win. I’m an extremely competitive person. There’s no timetable of, ‘Hey, like, let’s win by this [year].’ No, we want to win now.”
His goals?
“Win the MAAC, go to the NCAA Tournament, win games in the NCAA Tournament,” he said.
Nobody had any expectations for Anderson last year, either, when he inherited a four-win Fairleigh Dickinson team in his first season as a Division I coach.
Not only did he guide the Knights to the NCAA Tournament, but his undersized team pulled off one of the biggest stunners in the history of March Madness, becoming just the second No. 16 seed to knock off of a No. 1 by ousting Purdue and National Player of the Year Zach Edey.
That win not only helped him land the job at Iona when Rick Pitino left to take over at St. John’s, but it also played a role in recruiting an almost completely new roster for the Gaels. Anderson, 51, became a national name last March.
His up-tempo style was on display, and it was attractive.
“Obviously, he has a formula of winning,” Harvard grad transfer and Brooklyn native Idan Tretout said. “You saw him do it against the highest level last year. He knows what it takes to get it done. Every practice, every meeting, he’s a very intense guy who has a standard. If you’re not up to that standard, we’re not going to win.
“You get this idea of who Tobin is from March Madness and talking to him in the recruiting process, but there’s a level of intensity that you probably wouldn’t know that he brings until you’re at a practice. He’s a dog, man. I haven’t been chewed out like that for a minute.”
It is uncertain what the Gaels will be this year, though Anderson said the newness of the roster shouldn’t be an excuse because so many teams are dealing with significant turnover in the transfer portal era.
The only player who returned from last year’s MAAC regular season and postseason champion was forward Osborn Shema, the team’s sixth-leading scorer.
Anderson loaded up on experience, bringing in graduate transfers Joel Brown (California), Terrell Williams Jr. (Southern), Wheza Panzo (Stetson) and Tretout.
Whatever happens this year, the new Iona coach is thrilled to be in this position, leading a program that has played in eight of the past 11 NCAA Tournaments.
It wasn’t easy getting a Division I job.
Anderson spent nine years at Division II St.
Thomas Aquinas in Sparkill, N.Y., after 12 years as a Division III head coach and brief stint as an assistant at Siena.
Much like at FDU, Anderson inherited a reclamation project of a program at St. Thomas Aquinas that was coming off a five-win campaign.
He led them to seven consecutive Division II NCAA Tournaments.
But it wasn’t until the spring of 2022 that he finally got his break.
“I can’t tell you how many times I would talk to athletic directors or search firms or agents or whatever, ” Anderson recalled, “and they were like, ‘Man you’re doing great. We’re just not going to hire a Division II coach.’ ”
He thought he may never get an opportunity to move up.
Anderson had no interest in taking an assistant job at the Division I level again, as some suggested could help.
Before FDU, the closest he came to a Division I job was, ironically, at Iona.
He was the Gaels’ top choice before Pitino emerged as an option in 2020.
So, when the Hall of Fame coach left last March, Anderson became the clear choice.
The Monday morning after the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament, Anderson and Iona president Seamus Carey spoke on the phone.
By the afternoon, the deal was done.
“Here you kind of feel like we should be pretty good. There’s a reason certain programs win, it’s not just because of the coaches and the players,” Anderson said. “There’s support people around you, there’s resources, there’s commitment from our president down to our athletic director, the boosters. All that stuff is important.
“Before [Tim] Cluess, they were winning here forever. There’s things in place to win. That’s great, because quite honestly, this is the first job I’ve had where that’s been the case.”
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