Fran Dunphy coached his last game, but his impact on fellow A-10 coaches will endure

WASHINGTON — When La Salle head coach Fran Dunphy walked off the floor after the buzzer sounded in sixth-seeded St. Joseph’s 75-70 win over the 14th-seeded Explorers on Thursday in the second round of the Atlantic 10 tournament, the conference lost its most experienced coach.

Dunphy’s final meeting with St. Joe’s was his 1,005th game as a head coach across 33 seasons at Penn, Temple, and La Salle. St. Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt is the A-10’s second-most experienced coach, though there is a 273-game gap — nearly a decade’s worth of games — between his 732 games as a head coach and Dunphy’s total.

Here’s what some of Dunphy’s fellow A-10 coaches had to say about Mr. Big 5’s retirement at the first and second rounds of the conference tournament:

Dunphy recruited current Richmond head coach Chris Mooney to play at Penn. Mooney, an Archbishop Ryan grad, ended up becoming a four-year starter at Princeton (1990-94) under longtime head coach Pete Carril.

After his playing career, Mooney coached at Lansdale Catholic High School and eventually landed the head coach job at Division III Beaver College, now Arcadia University. Even with Mooney establishing himself on the coaching scene, Dunphy remained an important figure for him.

“Coach Dunphy is as respected a coach as I’ve ever met,” Mooney said after Richmond’s 69-65 loss to Davidson. “I’ve been lucky to know him for a long time. … He’s my dad’s favorite coach, myself included.”

» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: Fran Dunphy served La Salle and the Big 5 better than anyone

Mooney has been at the helm for Richmond since 2005, after coaching one season at Air Force. He’s coached 678 Division I games. It’s the third-most by an active A-10 coach, but it’s still 327 short of Dunphy’s mark.

“Coach Dunphy has so much wisdom and experience,” Mooney said. “I think that’s a tough loss for us, and I think that there’s no one more respected than him. He’s an idol of mine and somebody that I’ve always looked up to.”

Davidson head coach Matt McKillop was in attendance for Davidson’s 75-71 overtime win over Penn at the Palestra in December 2001. High school-aged McKillop watched his father, Davidson head coach Bob McKillop, outduel Dunphy on the sidelines that night.

Seventeen years and a change of scenery later, Dunphy avenged the overtime loss to the Wildcats. With Matt then an assistant on Bob’s coaching staff, Dunphy’s Temple squad claimed a 77-75 overtime victory over Davidson in December 2018 in Atlantic City.

“He’s an unbelievable coach,” McKillop said after Davidson’s first-round win over Richmond. “And for him to be at a place like Penn and a place like Temple and a place like La Salle, which are all different, and him being successful at each of them, speaks to his mastery of coaching.”

Bob McKillop coached 1,014 games, nine more than Dunphy, before retiring in 2022. Matt took over for his father and has coached 97 games in three seasons — leaving him with a long way to go to catch Dunphy and his father.

“We go to our conference meetings, and that’s often where I’ll engage with other coaches,” McKillop said. “He’s the guy you want to stand next to because he’ll probably say something that you remember or is impactful. … He’s a special human that I’ve gotten to know a little bit, and hopefully I can bump in and hear some more of his insights.”

Massachusetts head coach Frank Martin, who has coached 583 Division I games in his 18-year career, has the distinct honor of being the last coach to lose to Dunphy. The 14th-seeded Explorers ended the season of 11th-seeded UMass with a 78-71 victory for Dunphy’s last win.

» READ MORE: Fran Dunphy gets a Philly send-off as La Salle knocks off St. Joe’s: ‘Nobody’s been luckier than me’

After the game, Martin praised Dunphy as a “great example for anyone that ever cares about what college basketball should be about.”

“Dunph is what this business should be,” Martin said. “I wish coaches would study him and see the graciousness with which he treats people and the way he uplifts the lives of the people around him. He didn’t have to be good to me when I was a young head coach in this business. But he did it because that’s who he is.”

What really impresses Martin is how many times Dunphy has led a team to the NCAA Tournament, which is even more impressive, considering he hasn’t coached at a national powerhouse.

“He’s been to the NCAA Tournament 17 times,” Martin said. “Just think about that. That’s not easy to do.”

While Martin is the last coach to lose to Dunphy, St. Joe’s head coach Billy Lange is the last coach to beat Dunphy.

Lange and Dunphy are well-acquainted. In addition to Big 5 and A-10 meetings since Lange took over the St. Joe’s job in 2019, Dunphy knew Lange’s father, Bill Lange Sr., as the head coach at Bishop Eustace Prep. Dunphy also was instrumental in Lange landing his first collegiate role as an assistant to basketball Hall of Famer Herb Magee at Philadelphia Textile, now Jefferson University.

“None of us get here without other people sowing into us,” Lange said. “We just don’t get here. [Dunphy] was the first person that interviewed me. He was the person that called Herb Magee, he and Steve Donahue, to help me get the job at Philadelphia Textile. That was my chance to get into college.”

Lange has coached 389 Division I games in 13 seasons at Navy and St. Joe’s. He needs 616 more to catch up to Dunphy.

“He’s everything that a coach should be about,” Lange said. “He cares about the community, he cares about his players, he’s committed to their development. He’s an ambassador. He wants other people to do well. That’s not what our business is like, right? Everybody wants each other to not do well. He’s always raising every boat. I just think the world of the guy.”

Lange and the Hawks advanced to face third-seeded Dayton (22-9, 12-6 A-10) in the quarterfinals of the A-10 tournament on Friday night. On the other side, the Explorers, the A-10, the Big 5, and the college basketball world at-large will embark on the post-Dunphy era.