Men's basketball Head Coach Joe Reilly schedules plenty of visits with prospective students interested in joining his team. But a scheduled visit with Leo Clibanoff '23 in the spring of 2017 wasn't shaping up to be an ordinary recruit visit, because Clibanoff wasn't interested in a roster spot; instead, he was looking to assist Reilly behind the scenes.
Reilly remembers the visit well. "We had an instant connection," he says, recalling the conversation with Clibanoff and his dad, Andy, a Wesleyan grad '86 and member of the ice hockey team for two years. Initially, Clibanoff inquired about being a manager, but when Reilly learned of his background, including an uncle with ties to the NBA as a scout for the Denver Nuggets, he offered him a student-assistant position instead. "I was impressed with Leo from the start and felt like he could be more valuable to the program as a student assistant coach rather than a manager," Reilly says.
Clibanoff grew up just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and has been around the sport of basketball his whole life. He played in youth leagues, and his family had season tickets with the Sixers. He became team manager for his Lower Merion High School team—the school that produced Kobe Bryant—and learned how to track stats based on attitude and hustle, something the coach had learned through his connections with the nearby Villanova program. This made Clibanoff a more valuable manager than most, who typically do little more than get balls out and run the clock in practice.
With stats, Clibanoff started looking at the game from the inside out, and he was hooked. "I knew I wanted to work for a college team, preferably one that was four hours or less from home, so I started reaching out," he says. "When I met with Coach Reilly, I really felt like he believed in me," and he made the decision to attend Wesleyan shortly after his visit.
From day one, Clibanoff has been all-in. Reilly appreciates the tremendous amount of time he has committed to the program. "Leo has been at every practice and every game, missing October break and coming back early each December," says Reilly. On top of that, there is time spent in meetings, helping players get extra reps in the gym and hours breaking down video. Reilly adds, "Outside of me, he has logged more practices, games and hours than anyone else in the program."
During his first year, Clibanoff's role was limited. "My main task was to be a sponge and learn how Reilly liked things done," he recalls. He was invited to some coaches' meetings and took minimal stats. "I was focused on gaining Coach's trust," he says. It was an up-and-down 2018-19 season, and the team lost in the first round of the NESCAC tournament. The most important thing he learned that year was "to put the team first and do whatever the team needed," he says.
The following season, Clibanoff picked up some additional duties, including a larger role in scouting opposing players and doing a great deal of the legwork for Reilly's scouting reports. Then the pandemic hit, and like so many of his peers, he had decisions to make. Clibanoff didn't want to lose a year gaining experience in Reilly's program, so he took the year off from school, lived in Philadelphia with a few guys from the team and signed on for a patience-testing position as a roving substitute teacher at an elementary school. "It was pretty hectic, with Covid, but I learned how to control a room of people and make changes on the fly," he laughed.
When summer arrived, Clibanoff took an internship with basketball skills trainers Luke Cooper and Alex Bazzell helping them work out potential NBA draftees. "I learned a lot of great drills," he says, "and saw how locked in and focused the athletes were." Armed with a new skill set, he returned to Wesleyan for the 2021-22 season. Reilly made use of his newly acquired skills by giving him more game prep, scouting, practice planning and player development duties. This included planning and executing individual workouts with guard Sam Peek '22, who at season's end earned NESCAC Player of the Year honors. The extra work with players helped pave the way to a NESCAC Championship and trip to the second round in the NCAA tournament.
He again worked over the summer with a skills trainer—this time with Andrew Moran, owner of Miami Hoop School—and brought back more training ideas to introduce in Silloway Gym. Over this season, he has become Reilly's right-hand man. Now a trusted coaching staff member, he is in every coaches' meeting and sits next to Reilly on the bench. "Having someone with four seasons of experience on the bench with me makes a big difference," shares Reilly, who reveals that they now regularly finish each other's sentences. On Senior Day, February 11, Reilly and Clibanoff will be coaching their 102nd game together.
While prepping for games, Reilly assigns an upcoming opponent to each of his assistant coaches. For Clibanoff's assigned teams, he exclusively prepares the scouting reports, and he is the one who leads the scout walk-throughs and video sessions. "It's his voice the players are hearing," says Reilly. "I never thought I would give that much responsibility to a student-assistant, but he has earned credibility with everyone."
Despite being his friends and housemates, players know to take their personnel questions to Reilly, even though Clibanoff most likely knows the answer. "I have a lot of trust in Leo to give him full access in team meetings," says Reilly, "but the players respect the boundaries."
After graduating in May, Clibanoff hopes to get an entry level job as a video intern with an NBA team, then rise through the coaching ranks until someday becoming an NBA coach. Reilly agrees. "Leo belongs in an NBA staff video room next year," he says. Until then, he'll keep preparing the Cardinals for the final stretch of the season and upcoming post-season play.
"I am so thankful to Coach Reilly," he says. "I am super fortunate to have been around such great people here at Wes." Reilly knows Clibanoff's departure will leave a hole in the program. "The absence of Leo's presence and day-to-day contributions to the program will be felt more than I want to think about right now. He is a remarkable young man."
