Tim O'Shea (born January 13, 1962) is an American
college basketball coach, most recently the head coach of the
men's basketball team at
Bryant University
Bryant University is a private university in Smithfield, Rhode Island. It has two colleges, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business, and is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
History
Butler Exc ...
. He was previously the head coach at
Ohio University.
Playing career
Born in
Woodbury, New Jersey, O'Shea earned All-America accolades while playing at
Wayland High School in
Wayland, Massachusetts. He played college basketball at
Boston College
Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...
from 1980 to 1984 under
Gary Williams. During his time at BC, O'Shea and the Eagles won two Big East regular-season titles. O'Shea also earned four postseason tournament berths during his career, with BC advancing twice to the NCAA tournament
Sweet Sixteen and once to the
Elite Eight.
O'Shea earned a bachelor's degree in communications with a minor in English from Boston College in 1984, then added a master's degree in counseling/psychology from BC two years later.
Coaching career
Upon graduation from Boston College, O'Shea became a graduate assistant at the
University of Rhode Island (URI) for the 1984–85 season before returning to The Heights as a grad assistant at BC from 1985 to 1986. After a two-year stint as an assistant at
Yale, O'Shea returned to URI, joining
Al Skinner
Albert Lee Skinner Jr. (born June 16, 1952) is an American men's college basketball head coach and a former collegiate and professional basketball player. He was formerly the head coach of the Boston College Eagles men's basketball team and was t ...
's staff, where he stayed for nine seasons. While on the Rams' staff, O'Shea was a part of two NCAA tournament bids along with two
NIT bids. He is credited with recruiting
Cuttino Mobley among others to URI. O'Shea followed Skinner and returned to his alma mater once again after Skinner accepted the Boston College job in 1997. He remained on the staff until 2001, when he landed his first head coaching gig at Ohio, just a year after the Eagles won both the Big East regular season and tournament titles, finishing with a 27–5 record and earning three-seed in the NCAA tournament.
Ohio
In his first season in charge of the Bobcats, O'Shea guided the team to a 17–11 record, including wins over
DePaul and
North Carolina. A year later, O'Shea and Ohio posted a 14–16 record, with the season highlighted by a victory over
Virginia.
Following the
2002–03 season,
forward Brandon Hunter became the first Bobcat selected in the
NBA draft since
1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...
when the
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of t ...
selected him in the second round. A year later, after losing Hunter, sixth man Sonny Johnson and three-point shooter Steve Esterkamp, the
2003–04 Bobcats slipped to a 10–20 record, but bounced back in
2004–05, posting a 21–11 record en route to the
NCAA tournament.
The 2004–05 Bobcats captured significant non-conference victories against
San Francisco,
Butler
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...
and
Detroit, then won 11 of their last 15 contests down the stretch. O'Shea won the
MAC tournament but their run ended in the first round of the NCAA tournament against
Florida, falling 67–62, overcoming a 20-point second-half deficit, but coming up just short.
With expectations high in
2005–06, O'Shea and Ohio compiled 19 victories before falling to eventual league champion
Kent State
Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in Ash ...
in the
MAC tournament semifinals. The Bobcats registered victories at
Marist,
Rhode Island and
Toledo
Toledo most commonly refers to:
* Toledo, Spain, a city in Spain
* Province of Toledo, Spain
* Toledo, Ohio, a city in the United States
Toledo may also refer to:
Places Belize
* Toledo District
* Toledo Settlement
Bolivia
* Toledo, Orur ...
, against
Akron and
Samford at home, and took 18th-ranked
Kentucky to the wire in
Cincinnati, Ohio.
From 2003 until O'Shea's departure in 2008, Ohio would have five straight winning seasons with at least 19 wins each season. O'Shea was 120–95 in eight seasons in charge.
Bryant
O'Shea returned to his New England roots when he signed an eight-year contract to take over the head coaching duties at Bryant as the school transitioned to a full
Division I member of the
Northeast Conference. The Bulldogs broke through in the Bulldogs' first season of full Division I eligibility in 2012–13, winning 19 games and hosting a game in the
College Basketball Invitational.
Bryant went 16–15 the following season with an NEC semifinal appearance, but the Bulldogs failed to make the NEC tournament in two of O'Shea's final three seasons at the helm, including an injury-plagued 2017–18 campaign in which Bryant's four leading scorers made a total of four starts together, all in the month of November.
On February 12, 2018, O'Shea announced his retirement from Bryant, effectively at the end of the
2017–18 season.
Head coaching record
References
External links
Ohio profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oshea, Tim
1962 births
Living people
American men's basketball coaches
American men's basketball players
Basketball coaches from New Jersey
Basketball players from New Jersey
Boston College Eagles men's basketball coaches
Boston College Eagles men's basketball players
Bryant Bulldogs men's basketball coaches
Ohio Bobcats men's basketball coaches
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Rhode Island Rams men's basketball coaches
Sportspeople from Woodbury, New Jersey
Yale Bulldogs men's basketball coaches
Wayland High School alumni