Michael Krasnoff’s first season as head coach of the women’s basketball team at SUNY Old Westbury was 15 years ago. Krasnoff, his coaching staff, and the players have built a top notch program. This success didn’t happen overnight. In his first five seasons at the helm, Old Westbury finished with a record of .500 or better three times. Their best record during that time was 15-9 in the 2005-06 season.
The record has improved since then: in 2010-11, the Panthers finished with their best record under Krasnoff, going 20-8. In the past three seasons, the team went 69-14. The Panthers have captured two Skyline Conference Championships and made the NCAA Tournament two times in the past three seasons.
Michael Krasnoff attributed the recent success to recruiting and hard work from the players.
“The success has been unbelievable and it’s all through our recruiting and hard work that our kids put in once we have them,” Krasnoff said.
It is a challenge to build a championship team. “It’s the recruiting,” Krasnoff continued.
“It’s trying to sell yourself, the school, [and] the program to kids and offer them nothing more than an opportunity to play for us and for me, the school. It’s not an easy thing at the Division III level. It’s extremely difficult. They say that being successful should make things easier. I’m not necessarily finding that’s becoming easier. I find it’s almost just lucky when you get a few kids in there that other kids that younger kids are maybe a year behind that they know or have a good relationship with that person and maybe that helps steer them in. It’s very, very difficult task to get kids in here.”
The recent success of the women’s basketball team can be used as a selling point to lure incoming freshmen and transfer student-athletes. This works in some cases, but it doesn’t work all the time. “We certainly use that. We use it all we can,” Krasnoff said, but:
“My point is that doesn’t always work. In fact, here’s a great point. I do a lot of my recruiting out of the PSAL [Public Schools Athletic League]. The PSAL is in the five boroughs and you would think high school seniors are aware that SUNY Old Westbury are successful the past three years. They’re not. They don’t have a clue because kids just don’t investigate [and] they don’t look unless they were really interested in this specific school, but that’s not the norm.”
All of the hours of recruiting and watching game film are worth it when the team ends the season with a Skyline Conference Championship. Old Westbury captured their first conference championship in the 2015-16 season. For Krasnoff, it’s a bittersweet moment seeing the players climb the ladder to cut down the net after a Skyline Conference Championship win. “There’s nothing better than that,” says Krasnoff,
“Getting the opportunity, not for me to climb the ladder, but watching everyone of our student-athletes taking their turn stepping up that ladder with that scissor in hand and getting a chance to cut the net. Of course, there’s a bunch of them that aren’t aware of this feeling. Only our returners there this year knew what it was like, so that drives the newer players like the freshmen and the transfers who never had an opportunity to do something like that aren’t even aware of how exhilarating it is to get a chance to do that. Now watching them getting the opportunity to do it and to watch the expression on their face is priceless.”
It’s been almost two months since Old Westbury’s last game, but the grind never ends. The student-athletes are training for next season and Michael Krasnoff is still recruiting.
