Glenn Braica

Glenn Braica (born September 16, 1964) is the men's basketball head coach at St. Francis College since 2010.^[2] Braica was born in Brooklyn, New York and is an alumnus of Bishop Ford High School and Queens College. Braica began his head coaching career at St. Francis with 22 years experience as an assistant coach, 15 of which were with St. Francis. Since becoming the 17th head coach in the programs history in 2010, Braica has reached the Northeast Conference Tournament each of his 3 years.

Biography

Braica attended St. Agnes High School from 1980–82 and Bishop Ford in Brooklyn from 1982–84.^[3] Braica went on to Queens College and played for the Knights from 1984–88 as a point guard. At Queens College, Braica met Norm Roberts and became great friends; that would later lead to Roberts hiring Braica as his assistant at St. John's University.^[4] Prior to St. Johns's, Braica was an assistant coach for Ron Ganulin at St. Francis College, where in Braica's last seven years, the Terriers posted a 118-83 record, including an 88-42 mark in the Northeast Conference.

Other notable accomplishments during Braica's tenure as an assistant at St. Francis include finishing with a .500 or better record in the league seven straight years, at that time the longest active streak in the league. They also reached the NEC semi-finals five times and had two championship game appearances in Braica's last five seasons.^[5] While at St. John's, Braica helped lead the Red Storm to two NIT bids as an assistant coach.

St. Francis College

On April 29, 2010, Glenn Braica was announced as the 17th head coach in the history of the St. Francis Terriers men's basketball program. He replaced Brian Nash, who resigned for personal reasons on April 7, 2010.^[2] In Braica's first season as head coach, the Terriers qualified for the NEC tournament as the 5th seed.^[6] They then lost in the first round of the NEC Tournament to Central Connecticut State 62–64. Under Braica, Akeem Bennett became the first Terrier selected to the NBA D-League.^[7] In his second season, Braica led the Terriers to their second NEC tournament with the 4th seed. They went 12–6 in the NEC, their most wins since the 2003-04 season and they hosted their first home tournament game since 1997, a 72–80 loss to Quinnipiac. Additionally, Braica was selected as the 2012 NEC Jim Phelan coach of the year and as the 2012 NABC District 18 Co-Coach of the Year.^[1][8][9] For the 2012–13 season, Braica's team went 12–18 overall and 8–11 in conference play. They finished 8th, well below where they were expected to finish in the NEC coach's preseason poll (4th) but qualified for the NEC tournament. In the 2013 NEC Tournament the Terriers again lost in the first round, this time to Robert Morris 75–57. For the 2013-14 campaign, Braica was able to guide his Terriers to a 9–6 non-conference record which was one win shy of being the first NEC team to win 10 non-conference games in a season. Part of this success was the Terriers stingy defense and big road wins against Miami, Florida Atlantic and Stony Brook.^[10] The Terriers also participated in the 2013 Maui Invitational Tournament as part of the Mainland Bracket for the first time in the programs history. The Terriers produced a 1–1 record and won the consolation game of the Mainland bracket against Oakland.^[11]

Head coaching record

References