By: Michael Sweeney
When it comes to basketball coaches, collegiate and professional, they come from all walks of life and take different paths. Trent Angelucci is no different. Like a lot of coaches, collegiate and professional, Angelucci was first a player. When Trent was at South Carolina, he was trying to walk on the basketball team. Unfortunately, he broke his leg and was unable make the team. This brought him to the idea of coaching. He managed to get his first coaching job as an assistant at Transylvania University, a D-III school. Angelucci said that the only reason he got the job is because “They needed someone old enough to drive the team bus.” Along with being an assistant for the Varsity team, he was the head coach of their JV team. The recruiting at Transylvania was also a lot more difficult because they were a D-III school. Angelucci used his own car, paid for his own gas and would go all around the state of Kentucky watching as Angelucci puts it, “A bunch of 6-foot-tall white dudes.” While he worked practically for free and was working 6am-1am every day for a year, he believes that it was an incredible opportunity and it gave him a whole lot of valuable experience, Angelucci learned a lot while at Transylvania University, but nothing more important according to him than “Duke sucks!”
Angelucci’s next stop was Georgia Tech. There things were a lot less stressful than at Transylvania, but Angelucci still put in a lot of hours. He worked as a video coordinator. He helped break down opponent’s film and he researched and developed reports about other teams. Along with those duties, Angelucci made themed videos for recruits that were coming to visit. Along with trying to wow recruits, he also researched them, followed them on social media, and helped host visits. While at Georgia Tech, Angelucci was never the one making recruiting trips to recruit’s homes, he was very much involved in the recruiting process. According to Angelucci, one of the biggest things that he learned was that “Duke sucks!”
Now at Southern Utah University, Angelucci served as a special assistant to the head coach during the 2016-2017 season. He was promoted to Assistant Coach in 2017 Looking at the upcoming season Angelucci is very excited and optimistic. I was very curious to hear what his goals for the team are going into this year since last year was a struggle. Last year the Southern Utah Thunderbirds went (13-19) overall and (5-13) in conference, SUU struggled mightily on the road going (2-13). When Angelucci told me that his goal for the team was “To win league” it surprised me. While the record mat not show it, SUU was much better than their record shows. They were in a lot of very close games and even played the Michigan State Spartans tight, who were the #1 team in the country at the time. I asked Angelucci what he looks for in a player and he said, “A player who plays defense, plays multiple positions, long, can shoot, and works hard.” He said that these are exactly the type of players we will see on the floor for SUU. One of the biggest things that fans will notice according to Angelucci is that they will be playing more “position-less basketball.” SUU has a lot of long players that can shoot. One thing that really intrigued me is that he said that many of SUU’s best players were not playing last year. Many of them were not able to play last year. When listening to how SUU is going to play it reminded me a lot of the Warriors. The combination of long players, defense, the ability to play multiple positions, it seems like SUU is going in the direction of the NBA. Very three point heavy and an emphasis on position-less basketball. When asking Angelucci about keys to success with this style of basketball, he responded, “Have Steph Curry and Kevin Durant on your team.” Angelucci believes this team can be very good. If you look at this team on paper last year, they were bad, but they were in almost every game they played, including the game against Michigan State.
From being hired at a D-III school because he had a driver’s license to being an assistant coach at a D-I school, Trent Angelucci has had quite a ride, but he is not even close to done yet. This year, all eyes are on the Big Sky Championship. The last bit of information he gave me was simple, “Duke sucks!”
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