City of Basketball Love

Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33)
—

Brian Lynch was certain it was time to go back home, but he made his return during a time of great uncertainty.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Lynch decided to leave behind a professional career that spanned eight countries, including one that ultimately defined his career path into coaching. He learned about an opportunity as an assistant coach with the St. Rose (N.J.) girls program, six blocks from the beach in his hometown of Belmar and a half-hour drive from his alma mater, Christian Brothers Academy.

It was a chance for him to coach his daughter, Jada, and become re-acclimated with the U.S. version of the game he had tremendous success in. Not long afterward, he was pegged for the boys head coaching job in August 2021 and his career had almost come full circle after a journey that had taken him from Belmar to the Main Line and all over Europe.

“I had been gone for so long that I didn’t really know the landscape of high school basketball anymore and there was a lot of learning to do,” Lynch said. “It has been a lot of fun and it’s a lot different than coaching European pros — those guys are coaching for contracts, and my job was on the line after we lost two games in a row. It’s not like that at St. Rose; we’re a small community that takes care of each other.”

This will be Lynch’s third season at the helm of St. Rose, and he has transformed it into one that is not only competing with some of the traditional Jersey powers but claiming long-awaited titles in the process. More importantly, he came back to a place where he turned his passion into a profession. 

Lynch was a star in Belmar, scoring 1,108 career points at Christian Brothers Academy and winning three Shore Conference Tournament titles as well as the 1995 NJSIAA Non-Public A championship – the last state title the Colts won. One of his teammates on the ’95 team was current Christian Brothers Academy head man Geoff Billet.

Lynch earned a scholarship to Villanova and played four seasons under Steve Lappas, playing with the likes of Alvin Williams, Tim Thomas, and Malik Allen, and helping the Wildcats make the NCAA Tournament twice. He started 64 games over his final two seasons and averaged 8.5 points per game for his career, finishing 10 shy of the 1000-point mark. Upon graduating from Villanova in 2000, he began his professional career overseas playing in seven countries in the first five years with stops in Poland, Israel, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Italy, France and Belgium, where the next phase in his career (and life) began.

He signed to play with Euphony Bree B.B.C. in 2005, a season after the club won its first and only Belgian Basketball League title (the program dissolved five years later). The team was coached by Chris Finch, a former Franklin & Marshall College and NCAA D-III All-American who is now the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves. One of Lynch’s teammates there was Odell Hodge – a two-time Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Player of the Year and AP Honorable Mention All-American in 1997 at Old Dominion. Hodge still ranks third all-time at ODU in points (2,117), rebounds (1,086) and blocks (286) and his No. 33 is retired there.

Finch helped shape Lynch’s coaching philosophy and where the game was headed while Hodge, now a manager of a local team in Belgium, became a lifelong friend who would give his teammate the keys to get St. Rose to another level almost two decades later.

“[Chris] loved the way I played because I fit in a system with guys who are more cognitive or cerebral players who played the right way whether it was moved, passed to the open guy or took the wide-open shot,” Lynch said. “I knew after getting coached by Chris, who is a basketball genius, I wanted to teach kids, so when I got into coaching, it was Odell who got me my first job in a lower division. I had been in Europe for 20 years after I left Villanova. I played and coached with Odell for many years.”

During his time in Belgium, he closed out his playing career in 2009 with the Antwerp Diamond Giants in the Pro Basketball League (PBL), which has since been succeeded by the Belgian-Dutch BNXT League. He also got married in February 2007 to his wife, Kim Clijsters – the former No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player in the world who holds four major singles titles. They began dating in 2005 when Lynch joined Euphony Bree; once his playing career was over, he traveled with her during the prime of her career and “started going to clinics, meeting coaches from all around the world” in the process.

Lynch was finding his own voice in the coaching realm in Belgium while also taking the time to cheer and scream as Clijsters rose to be one of the best tennis players on the planet. He had several assistant coaching jobs including a return to the Antwerp Diamond Giants and a stint with Limburg United. He received his first head coaching shot with Spirou Charleroi during the 2017-18 season. Shortly after, he was hired as a scout and began “recruiting guys from all over the NCAA trying to get them over here.”

A few years later, he’s back where he grew up, but he has more than familiarity and comfortability at St. Rose; he has a better grasp on the landscape of high school basketball entering year three as head coach.

“Having the experience of how college coaches think and what they like puts me in a position where I was recruiting kids out of Division I to play in Europe,” Lynch said. “I know what translates to winning and what guys want to see, so I can convince these guys that the quicker you play the right way and utilize those skills that you have whether it be your handles, passing or defensive ability within a team atmosphere, coaches will see that. That’s when you will get your best opportunity to be recruited.”

Lynch certainly knows what to look for in a player and he brought two of them with him in his return to the U.S. in Jayden and Matthew Hodge, Odell’s sons. Odell trusted Lynch to mentor his sons and give them a chance to play Division I basketball as he did. Matthew already had experience playing in the BNXT League, having played some games with Belfius Mons-Hainaut. Lynch understood the daunting task in front of him in terms of building the program to the level he wanted and developing two high-level prospects, but Jayden and Matthew were the first pieces to a puzzle that he has methodically put together.

“Odell said, ‘Do you want to take Jayden, the younger one,” and I said, ‘Yeah, we could build the program around him and see what he can do,’” Lynch said. “Then [Matthew] decided to come and that was the cherry on top because we didn’t expect him to come over.”

St. Rose made the state tournament in Lynch’s first season then last season, spearheaded by Matthew, a 6-foot-8, 210-pound rising senior big man who avg. 14.8 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 1.3 blocks and recently released his top 10 which includes Virginia, Alabama, Seton Hall, Marquette, and Villanova; and Jayden, a 6-5 rising sophomore who avg. 12.3 points and 3.6 rebounds and boasts offers from Temple, Maryland, Penn State and Old Dominion. 

The Purple Roses finished 24-5 overall and won the NJSIAA South Non-Public B title for the first time in 19 years. They fell to Mackenzie Mgbako (Indiana), Simeon Wilcher (St. John’s), Akil Watson (Arizona State) and Roselle Catholic in the state final, but it showed that St. Rose had transcended into one of the better programs in the state.

Jayden and Matthew keyed the Purple Roses’ success in 2022-23 but the additions of 6-6 rising senior Gio Panzini (Red Bank Catholic), 6-2 rising junior Evan Romano (Holmdel) and 6-foot rising junior Peter Mauro (Gill St. Bernard’s) prior to last season has St. Rose thinking it can win its first state crown since 1977. Also add 6-3 rising junior Bryan Ebeling, who led the Purple Roses with 39 three-pointers last year, and Lynch is confident that this group is primed to continue the upward trend. For that to happen, Lynch will look to his best prospect to lead the way.

“He defends multiple positions, and his best asset is his IQ because he knows where everybody is supposed to be and exactly what we’re supposed to be doing,” Lynch said. “People are asking, ‘Who is this guy?’ He plays the right way and doesn’t force anything. It’s very rare you’re going to see Matt take a guy one on one then shoot a stepback three. It just doesn’t happen because he’ll get to the rim and finish on you.”

Even more impressive is how Matthew Hodge has accepted the role as senior leader and used the increased expectations to fuel this loaded roster.

“It’s been great to build to this moment and get this program in a position it hasn’t been in for a couple years,” Hodge said. “It hasn’t really been noticed, so to be able to come in here and bring a program like St. Rose back to the top is something really nice.”

From the shores of Belmar to Belgium and back, Lynch has seen the game take him further than he ever thought possible and even though it has changed quite significantly since his playing days, he has shown that he is more than qualified for this endeavor due to his long and winding road to a program is not far from where he was born and raised. 

He can also watch Jada, a 5-11 rising sophomore at St. Rose, part of the Philly Rise 16U team that won the Nike Nationals championship, though she missed the title game playing with the Belgian U-16 national team. Jada avg. 13.1 points and 6.1 rebounds as a freshman and is one of the premier recruits in the area.

He has the experience and knowledge to excel, but more so he understands what more he can do as a coach now.

“Winning equates to people coming to see you and say, ‘Why are they winning and who do they have?’ I get them to buy into winning and playing together the right way,” Lynch said. “By doing that, guys will get recruited and we do have a lot of recruitable guys. That’s what I’ve been preaching, and these guys have been buying in. When we beat really good teams, I think people are shocked because we may not look the part but these kids can play.”