Dollar, who was fired Monday as Seattle University’s coach, would be the perfect guy to help rejuvenate a Huskies program that has gone fallow. The Huskies just finished their sixth consecutive season without an NCAA tournament bid.
Cameron Dollar entered Seattle University with such high hopes on that April day in 2009. As his mentor, Washington coach Lorenzo Romar, proudly watched the introductory news conference inconspicuously from a stairway, Dollar talked of his plans for revitalizing Redhawks basketball.
He had visions of NCAA tournaments and turning the previously dormant Seattle U program, just recently returned to Division I status after a 29-year hiatus, into a destination school for talented young ballers.
A noble idea, but it never came to fruition for a variety of reasons, some perhaps insurmountable. And eight years later, Dollar was fired Monday after another season with Seattle out of the limelight. The Redhawks finished 13-17 this season with a first-round ouster last week in the Western Athletic Conference tournament, cementing Dollar’s overall record at 107-138 — a .437 winning percentage.
But an undeniably sad day for Dollar can turn into a fortuitous opportunity both for him and Romar. As a Washington assistant from 2002-09, Dollar was something of a rock star, playing a key role (with fellow assistant Ken Bone) in the program’s glory years. The Huskies made four NCAA tournaments, two Sweet 16s, won the school’s first regular-season Pac-10 title and earned a No. 1 seed — accomplishments that helped make Dollar, just 33 at the time of his hire, such an attractive candidate for Seattle U.
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And now Dollar would be the perfect guy to help rejuvenate a Huskies program that has gone fallow. The Huskies just finished their sixth consecutive season without an NCAA tournament bid, hitting rock bottom with a 9-22 overall record, 2-16 conference mark and 13 losses in a row to end the season.
Romar’s future at the Washington remains in limbo as athletic director Jen Cohen evaluates the program. But with a star-studded recruiting class led by Michael Porter Jr. poised to come in, Dollar’s return to the sideline (and Romar’s side) could be the nudge the Huskies need to get back to prominence.
The Huskies have greatly missed the hard-nosed edge and toughness that Dollar helped propagate. The relentless defense and pressure that once was their calling card now is mostly a memory. That wasn’t all Dollar, of course — a large part was having players willing to do the necessary dirty work — but most would agree his intensity helped set a tone that infiltrated the entire roster.
It might be folklore, but there are tales of Romar, after games in which he felt the team played too soft for his liking, letting Dollar crack the whip in practice. The Huskies players, it’s said, learned quickly that the preferable choice was to meet the challenge in games.
Bringing back Dollar would help the Huskies regain an identity they desperately need to summon once more. And the timing, with a crop of hugely talented and impressionable freshmen coming in, is perfect.
Furthermore, two of Washington’s three assistants, Raphael Chillious and Will Conroy, have expiring two-year contracts. Only Michael Porter Sr., the coveted recruit’s father, has an ongoing contract.
It would seem a perfect landing spot for Dollar, who is the son of a high-school coach and has always loved the blue-collar grind of a basketball season. What better spot to rebuild his résumé than at the nearby place he knows inside out, and knows and respects him? And if you want to really dream of getting the band back together, Bone has spent this year in Spokane as a special assistant to Gonzaga coach Mark Few while his daughter completes her senior year of high school. He has spoken of pursuing a new position in the spring.
Despite the rough record, Dollar leaves Seattle University with his reputation intact, a good man in a difficult situation. Though he talked boldly of restoring the glory of the past — when Seattle U reached the NCAA tournament 11 times in the 1950s and ’60s and played in the NCAA title game in 1958, losing 84-72 to Kentucky — Elgin Baylor wasn’t walking through the door. Neither were the fabled O’Brien twins, John and Eddie, except to sit in the stands (Eddie died in 2014).
Dollar never was able to fully tie into the bounty of high-school talent coming out of Seattle. It was a hard sell, made more difficult by the school being ineligible for the NCAA tournament for his first three years while they transitioned to Division I. Instead of joining Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference, as many hoped, Seattle wound up instead in the much less sexy WAC.
The Redhawks had their moments under Dollar. In 2014-15, they were one win from the NCAA berth that could have jump-started everything. That year they reached the semifinal of the College Basketball Invitational with a win over Colorado of the Pac-12. In Dollar’s tenure, they also had wins over Oregon State, Utah and Virginia but were not able to sustain those victories and turn them into a program-turning surge.
Now there’s another program in town that desperately needs a surge. Dollar is suddenly available. It seems a perfect match.