As an Indiana assistant under Bob Knight, Dr. Lionel Sinn made it to the Final Four. He once went up against John Thompson of Georgetown. Badger fans were shocked into silence after an incredible night at Wisconsin.
The majority of Sinn’s 21 years as a head coach, however, were spent out of the spotlight. The Village Rio Ranchero resident lived his college career at the lower levels of the game, where he built programs and laid the foundation for what is now an NCAA Division II powerhouse.
Northwest Missouri State, where Sinn has turned around three decades of averageness, won its third Division II championship in the last 5 years last weekend. He also has the highest winning percentage at Bethel College in Tennessee, which is an NAIA institution.
Sinn, who had a 361-234 record at four stops, said, “I enjoyed building those two jobs. I wanted to see what kind of person I was.”
Sinn, who grew up on a farm not far from the Indiana University campus, has three degrees from the university. He coached for nine years in Indiana’s basketball hotbed, leading Muncie’s Delta High to the regional final in 1968 before losing to conventional power Muncie Central.
Sinn developed a desire to coach at the college level over time. He returned to IU for his doctorate and entered the Hoosiers as a graduate assistant under Knight in 1972 when he was 32 years old and in his second year.
“Without a doubt, a brilliant man,” Sinn said. “I still have my practice notes from that year.”
Knight’s demanding ways and short fuse cut through a lot of activities, to be sure.
“All the negative stuff you’re aware of,” Sinn said. “His behavior irritated me. That isn’t my personality, and it isn’t my Christian faith. But that doesn’t stop me from appreciating his brilliance.”
Knight’s motion offense and man-to-man defense became hallmarks of his Hall of Fame legacy during that season, according to Sinn. And it got the Hoosiers to the Final Four in St. Louis, where they faced John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in a semifinal.
Sinn expressed, “Unbelievable. Sitting (on the bench) at a Final Four on TV for a country kid from a two-room school? Against the University of California, Berkeley? Wow, that was incredible. It had all been unreal.”
The Hoosiers fell behind early but came back to within two points before UCLA won. The Bruins gave Wooden his ninth national championship two nights later.
Sinn set out for Bethel, with his doctorate in hand, and a task that entailed much more than coaching basketball.
“I was responsible for 12 semester hours of instruction. I was the athletic director at the time. I was the head basketball coach at the time. I didn’t have an assistant coach. I didn’t have a coach. I was in charge of the team bus. I purchased an old school bus and painted it in the colors of our school.”
Later, baseball was introduced to the school, and Sinn became the first coach. In addition, he traveled 20,000 miles a year to sign players. Throughout it all, Bethel basketball was ranked in the top 20 of the NAIA in five of his six seasons at the helm.
“I loved it,” he said, “but I was frazzled after six years.” Sinn was hired at Northwest Missouri State, a school where no coach had won a game since the 1940s. He left 9 years later with a program-best 165 victories and eight seasons in which the Bearcats were ranked, reaching as high as No. 3 once.
He would have stayed longer, but his parents’ and Karen’s health problems forced the family to return to Indiana. Northwest won nine Division II tournaments in 19 years under former assistant Steve Tappmeyer, paving the way for recent championships under his successor.
Sinn spent four seasons in Southern Indiana, including a turbulent month in December 1990.
Ilo Mutombo, USI’s center, was the younger brother of Dikembe Mutombo, who starred at Georgetown and went on to become an eight-time NBA All-Star. Sinn spent a year persuading Thompson to arrange a game between the brothers.
Sinn recalled, “We didn’t want to be ashamed, but (along the front), we were 6-11, 6-9 and 6-7, and we were pretty good.”
Despite holding Georgetown to just 40% shooting and a 49-40 rebounding advantage, USI won by 20 points. The Screaming Eagles went to Wisconsin nine days later and stunned the Badgers 78-66.
Sinn recalled, “We beat them in every step of the game — on the road, against Big Ten officials. The audience was so taken aback that they were practically sitting on their knees.”
Sinn’s last coaching stop was at Central College in Iowa, where he coached for two seasons before quitting and moving to The Villages in 1997. He reappeared temporarily as athletic director at a Georgia two-year college, but only for a year.
Sinn said he interviewed for about two dozen Divisions I positions but never received a call. Despite these challenges, it had no bearing on what he set out to do as a coach.
“Basketball is basketball. It’s drills and teaching, and you want to have an impact on their lives and help them develop into young men who can be proud of their families. Regardless of the stage, this is the case.”
– Attributed Source, The Villages Daily Sun