By Woodrow Carroll
Northern Illinois University men’s basketball, is in the Age of Rashon Burno. It figures to be a challenge, at least for the time being.
After more than nine seasons at Northern Illinois, Mark Montgomery was fired as head men’s basketball coach during the season early last Spring. Montgomery’s charges were 1-7. It was a bizarre season in DeKalb. Games were played, postponed, then restarted last season. The Huskies, who finished 3-16 overall, ended up with Lamar Chapman as interim head coach.
Burno, a native of Jersey City, N.J., was a top player at St. Anthony High in Jersey City. The school was closed in 2017. It had been a national power in boys basketball.
Bruno’s head coach at St. Anthony was Bob Hurley, whose son, Bobby, played for his father at St. Anthony, then went to Duke University, where, along with Christian Laettner and Grant Hill, the Blue Devils won National tournament championships in both 1991 and 1992.
Burno ended up at DePaul to play for head coach Pat Kennedy. The 2000 Blue Demons, with Burno in the lineup, reached the NCAA Tournament before falling, 81-77, in overtime, to Kansas in the opening round.
After his time at Marmion Academy in Aurora, Burno had a series of assistant coaching jobs at the collegiate level. His last assistant coaching job was at Arizona State University.
Arizona State head coach was Bobby Hurley, where, from 2015-2021, Burno was an assistant.
Northern Illinois will open at Washington Tuesday, Nov. 9, then more road games at Indiana Friday, Nov. 12, Missouri Thursday, Nov. 18, then two games in Jacksonville, Fla. and a trip to Milwaukee to play Marquette Saturday, Nov. 27. Northern Illinois will be on the road for six games before its home opener against Eastern Illinois Wednesday, Dec. 1.
Of the 13 players on the Northern Illinois roster only two have an Illinois high school background, Keshawn Johnson, 6-3 sophomore from Bloom in Chicago Heights and Kalib Thornton, 6-0 junior from Bolingbrook. Nine players started out elsewhere after high school. days.
Only one Northern Illinois men’s basketball coach in the past 70 seasons has produced a winning record in his first year at the school. Jim Molinari was 17-11 in 1989-1990 at in the first of his two seasons at Northern Illinois.