Green Bay Notre Dame boys basketball coach A.J. Alexander steps down

GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Notre Dame boys basketball team is looking for a new coach.

A.J. Alexander informed his players Thursday that he is stepping down after three seasons with the program. It is believed he made the decision based on family considerations.

Alexander was not immediately available for comment.

He was just 23 and still in college when he was hired by Notre Dame in June 2018.

He faced immediate pressure in his new position, taking over a program that had gone a combined 43-28 the previous three seasons under former coach John Taylor, including a 17-7 mark in his last year.

Taylor had hoped to return, but the school decided to go in a different direction.

Alexander at least had some experience under his belt despite his age.

His resume included coaching the seventh grade 1848 AAU team and the Green Bay Preble Futures. He also served as a freshman basketball coach at Preble, a baseball coach at Notre Dame and a football coach at Red Smith.

Still, things looked a bit bleak in Alexander’s first year when the Tritons went 3-20 before starting the following season 4-9.

It didn’t stay that way.

Notre Dame won eight of its final 11 games to end the 2019-20 campaign and was one of the top teams in the area this past season.

The Tritons went 17-9 before losing to Ashwaubenon in a WIAA Division 2 regional championship.

“This is not to sound cliché, but A.J. is just an awesome person,” Notre Dame athletic director Matthew Koenig said. “He kind of jumped into a tough situation being so young and taking over a varsity program and, being cliché again, wet behind the ears in terms of running a program.

“Running high school sports, running your own program, is not easy. It has changed dramatically over the last 25 years. He jumped in, kind of had a rough first year. Comes in Year 2, they start the conference season 2-7. Then the second half he went 7-2 and then we had one of our best teams in a long time this year, finishing in the top 10 in the state. He was making great strides in a short amount of time.”

Koenig said Alexander loved the players like they were his own children. He would at times talk to Alexander on the phone for hours about the program and basketball.

Alexander is a student of the game and sometimes could be found reading a book by Jay Bilas about developing toughness on and off the court or one about Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.

“Just trying to learn and bring in any information,” Koenig said. “From an administrative standpoint, he was just so easy to work with. We’d be talking on the phone and he’d say, ‘That sounds great, hold on a minute, let me write that down.’ He was almost like an old-school reporter.

“He has notebooks and notebooks full of information. He takes notes, reads through it, he prepares himself. He did everything he could on a daily basis to try to make our program better. Records aren’t everything, but it’s a huge loss for Notre Dame to lose somebody that is so passionate about being a part of kids’ lives and making them better people.”

Notre Dame has posted the job opening, although a couple players already were throwing out names to Koenig during a track meet at the school Thursday.

Koenig will assemble a committee to help make the hire and doesn’t have anybody specific in mind. He prefers to leave the door open because he never knows who might be available. There also is a possibility somebody on the current staff will have interest.

The hope is to find a new coach within the first couple weeks of June, although it helps that Alexander has been so prepared with upcoming open gyms, camps and summer leagues that the transition should be smooth.

“I want to get a replacement in as quickly as possible, but I feel confident that he has prepared us so well,” Koenig said. “We are not jumping out of graduation and jumping right into the gym with instructional or contact days. It gives us an extra week or two.”