Addie Smith, Wes Crosby and Pat Higgins | The Duquesne Duke
Duquesne University basketball head coaches Jim Ferry and Suzie McConnell-Serio said Tuesday that they had not been contacted by other schools and are not planning to leave, despite speculation about their futures on the Bluff.
Ferry said Internet reports linking him to an open job at Hofstra University are not true and he denied that he spoke with Hofstra at the Final Four over the weekend.
“I don’t know where it’s coming from. It’s crazy,” Ferry, 45, said. “I never spoke to anybody from Hofstra. I never interviewed with Hofstra; Hofstra never contacted me. I think it’s just because I’m from Long Island, you know? People out there get these ideas in their heads and run with it and I don’t know where it comes from.”
“I’ve been working here, working hard with the guys and don’t plan on going anywhere.”
McConnell-Serio, 46, said that players and others have asked her if the University of Pittsburgh has contacted her for their open position. She said she hasn’t. Pitt fired head coach Agnus Berenato last week and will begin play in the ACC next season.
“I have not been contacted. I’m very happy where I am and I’m not looking to go anywhere. Obviously when someone contacts you, you will listen. Right now, I am the coach at Duquesne,” McConnell-Serio said. “We’ve been doing spring workouts. I love it here. My players are asking me, other people are asking. But I have not been contacted, and I will not contact them.
“Our goals will remain the same – to win an Atlantic-10 Championship and make the NCAA Tournament.”
Ralph Cindrich, a local sports agent said that if the coaches were offered those positions, a move might make sense
“You only have so many opportunities in life as an athlete and as a coach, and anytime you have the opportunity, particularly locally, to go up to that level, you almost have to take it, and pray that others offended or affected understand,” Cindrich said.
Cindrich noted that the job at Hofstra might have been attractive to Ferry if his name was in the mix because of coaches’ desires to go home for their careers.
“If you’re born and raised and play football at Wisconsin and all the sudden that job opens up, it makes it difficult,” Cindrich said. “If you got a chance to go home under those circumstances, quite frankly, if I got a chance to come back to Pittsburgh, I’m coming back to Pittsburgh.”
In his first season with Duquesne, Ferry led the Dukes to an 8-22, 1-15 record. He left the head coaching position at Long Island University-Brooklyn to join Duquesne after the University fired former coach Ron Everhart in March 2012.
“I cannot wait to get to work,” Ferry said after being introduced at an April 12, 2012, press conference. “I’m extremely excited, honored and thankful for this opportunity.”
McConnell-Serio has led the Dukes to a 123-68 record in her time at Duquesne. She has also coached the Dukes to the WNIT for five consecutive seasons, and according to experts, just missed out on a bid to the NCAA women’s basketball tournament this past season.
