Class AAAA Basketball: The New Coaches

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>An improved trend continues in Class AAAA basketball as once again there are not that many new coaches. Only five among 63 schools. Here are those five new coaches!</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Tom Critchley Jr at Roseville. Critchley is a Minnesota coaching veteran who was most recently the boys head coach at Big Lake. Before that he had very successful stints at DGF as the girls coach, he won several league titles at Marshall as the boys coach, and was a two time section champ at Ulen-Hitterdal (also boys). Critchley's father and brother both coached at Roseville recently as well. The Raiders have a veteran of 28 years as a head coach and a coach that has won nearly 500 games as the lead man. Critchley was 54-47 at Big Lake. The Hornets were 5-20 the year before Critchley arrived. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Cameron Jones at St. Paul Central. Jones has spent a lot of time learning and grinding through the coaching ranks. He's had assistant/young level stints at Edina, CDH, Bethel and with the [program_tooltip program_id='2075674' first='Minnesota' last='Heat'] before he was named the head coach at Hill-Murray two years ago. He was 19-35 at Hill-Murray, a place that was a combined 6-64 the three years before he arrived. Now Jones takes over at Central. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Mike Nolan at Lakeville North. Nolan has been teaching and coaching basketball in Lakeville/Lakeville North since 1993. He was John Oxton's head assistant for a very impressive 29 years and two of those seasons he was the interim head coach when Oxton took time off to watch his kids play high school sports. North will have a different person as the top man but the system will be the same and the voice has been there for almost 30 years. Plus Nolan has those two years of head coaching experience plus he has led teams at the younger levels and been a head coach in other sports. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Kevin Smith of Rosemount. Smith was an assistant at Rosemount last year for a season coming to the program from Wisconsin where he was coaching for a couple decades both boys and girls at various levels. He's coached youth and varsity levels, and has coached both in high school and AAU. Smith has been the head coach at three different schools in Wisconsin before moving to Minnesota. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>TBD at Waconia. The Wildcats. They let go of Pat Hayes after 358 career wins, nine league titles and four state tournament appearances, and now they let go of Dan Rubischko who went 58-50 in four years as Waconia has moved into the highest level of high school basketball in Minnesota. They will get a decent/solid hire because Waconia is a wonderful community with great opportunities but at the same time, the coaching community is aware of the timing and situation of the last two coaches who were let go. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->