There is no looking back for new Bushnell-Prairie City High School girls basketball coach Patrick O’Brian.
Only forward. O’Brian is taking over a Spartans program that has posted a combined record of 8-63 the past three seasons.
That included a 4-21 record last year.
O’Brian will be the third coach for B-PC in as many seasons. Kory Schwarz coached the team in 2024-25 before stepping away prior to the start of last year due to family concerns.
B-PC athletic director Nate Zaehringer stepped in, coaching the Spartans.
While new to B-PC, O’Brian is hardly new to coaching.
In recent years, O’Brian has been an assistant football coach at LVC, as well as the assistant boys basketball coach at North Fulton. In that time, the Wildcats went from posting a 9-19 record in 2023-24 to 16-15 in 202425.
Last season, the Wildcats finished with a program record for wins, finishing 23-8.
This past spring, he served as an assistant baseball coach at Farmington, where he attended school and graduated from.
Besides coaching, O’Brian is an Illinois High School Association registered official in baseball and basketball.
“I had decided that I wasn’t going to coach football. I wasn’t going to coach baseball. I was only going to coach basketball,” said O’Brian. “I figured if I was only going to coach basketball, maybe I should look at being a head coach.”
“It’s a goal of mine that I’ve always had,” he added. “I’ve always wanted my own program.”
O’Brian applied for the position, before being selected and officially approved for the job by the B-PC Board of Education in April.
“I watched some video of this team,” said O’Brian. “They’ve struggled the last couple of years. But like I told these kids, ‘I’ve watched the games that you won. I’ve watched the games that you should’ve won. And I watched the games where you got blown out.’” “The effort in all three of those games was the same,” he added. “In the games they got blown out, they were diving on the floor for loose balls in the fourth quarter. That’s the kind of effort that I expect.”
“When I saw that, I was like ‘I’m going to try for this (coaching) opportunity,” said O’Brian.
“I told the team first, ‘Look, I’ve coached in every type of situation,’” he added. “I’ve coached in programs that have won one game in three years. I’ve coached in programs that have set the school record for wins. I’ve coached in programs that were 10 games over .500.”
“I can sympathize with where we’re at,” said O’Brian. “But we aren’t going to dwell on that. We’re putting that behind us. We’re moving forward full blast.”
In that effort to move forward, one of the first objectives for O’Brian is to begin putting a foundation in place.
“The one thing that I want to establish is our identity,” he said. “What are we going to hang our hat on? And what I said was that we were going to hang our hat on our defense.”
A year ago, B-PC allowed an average of 48.6 points per game.
“I think we’re going to surprise some people with our defensive intensity this year,” O’Brian said.
O’Brian is also looking for offensive improvement from a team that averaged just 31.4 points per game a year ago.
“We’re going to attack that and fix it,” he said of the offense.
“If we abide by our team identity and play the defense that we are capable of, why can’t we be in every game?” said O’Brian. “We can be, but we have to adhere to our team identity and we also have to find ways to score with the basketball.”
“I said ‘I can’t promise you eight wins. I can’t promise you 10 wins,’” he added. “‘I can only promise you that if you play defense and you live by our team identity, we’re going to have a chance to win every single game.’ That was my promise to them.”
Being the third coach in as many seasons, O’Brian also aims to bring some stability to the program.
“I’m here to build a program, not coach a year and move on to the next job,” he said. “I would like to build a program, but this team has to be the foundation.”
“Success breeds a culture that younger kids want to play in,” O’Brian added. “(The current players) are going to be people those younger kids look up to.”
“I’ve put a lot of pressure on them, telling them ‘You are the foundation of what I want to build,’” said O’Brian. “‘But you guys are talented enough to do that.’” “I’m hoping they take that challenge head-on. I think they are very capable of it,” he said.
