Greg Paulus Update

Will he barrel to success with Niagara?

We have always been impressed with Greg Paulus. His Duke career probably didn’t go as well as he hoped, but he never showed frustration and he always seemed to us to be a great teammate.

He’s bounced around for the last four years, working at Ohio State, Louisville, George Washington and Niagara as an assistant before getting his break at Niagara when Patrick Beilein resigned unexpectedly before the season.

The flipside of that is that Paulus has always wanted to be a basketball coach and has been exposed to many different things over the last four years. Toss that in with a strong high school program, a year at Syracuse under football coach Doug Maronne, and most of all four years at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski, and Paulus has a tremendous background to draw on.

He’ll have a tough year this year - Niagara is the second smallest team in the country and there’s only so much you can do to hide that - but you can be sure he’s doing what he’s always done: working hard, learning and overcoming.

Niagara plays at Syracuse Saturday where Paulus will get a friendly reception.

This year is for building habits and culture. Soon we’ll see just what kind of program builder he is.