St. Bonaventure head coach Mark Schmidt has announced his retirement after 19 seasons. He led the Bonnies to the NCAA Tournament three times. In response, Adrian Wojnarowski, the team’s general manager responsible for overseeing basketball operations, thanked Schmidt for his service. Wojnarowski is expected to lead the nationwide search for the Bonnies’ next head coach.
Following Schmidt’s announcement, former Ohio State player and ex-Grantland writer Mark Titus commented on Wojnarowski’s statement, referencing prior reports regarding the 57-year-old’s workplace interactions and staff changes at ESPN.
Mark Titus Discusses Adrian Wojnarowski’s Reported Workplace Incidents Following Schmidt’s Retirement
Titus, who played for Ohio State from 2006 to 2010 before starting a career in sports journalism, discussed Schmidt’s retirement on Wednesday’s episode of the “Mostly Hoops” podcast with co-hosts Dana Beers and Kyle Bauer.
Opening the segment, Bauer announced Schmidt’s departure and immediately referenced reports about Wojnarowski’s workplace conduct, tying them to the coach’s retirement.
Titus built on this by rhetorically asking Bauer about Wojnarowski’s previous work at ESPN, highlighting reports of layoffs among basketball reporters to accommodate his hiring, and mentioning other related incidents.
“Are they the same person?,” Titus asked.
“Titus, I hate to do this. That’s the same exact guy. That guy was in St. Bonaventure and then within a couple years is doing the exact same thing,” Bauer said.
Titus, who previously wrote for Grantland under Bill Simmons, remarked that Wojnarowski’s likable on-camera reputation seemed at odds with prior reports about his professional conduct at ESPN.
Continuing his critique, the former Ohio State player said that despite Wojnarowski’s likable persona, he is also known for wanting his name attached to every scoop reported in the news.
“He would see that as some sort of slight against him and he would say, ‘You know what that isn’t a report by Ohio State. That’s a report by Ohio State and Woj,'” Titus said. “So, I’m going to go ahead and throw my name on that one. And then they have to put on the bottom line as reported by Ohio State and Woj. That’s weird. That’s really really weird.”
Reacting with sarcasm, Titus expressed shock over Schmidt’s retirement at St. Bonaventure. Still, his knowledge of the former NBA insider’s work at Yahoo! Sports and ESPN, including incidents that led to the resignations of sportswriters, may have influenced his comments during the podcast.
However, SNY’s NBA insider Ian Begley, who previously worked with Wojnarowski on breaking NBA news, challenged Titus and Bauer’s narrative. Begley alleged that their claims about Wojnarowski’s role in staff changes were fabricated to generate attention, further fueling debate over the allegations’ legitimacy.
“Did you guys just make this up in your own heads? Or do you have some kind of evidence to support that Woj had multiple people fired at ESPN? Do you have evidence that he forced his byline on to stories that other writers reported? You don’t, because it didn’t happen,” Begley wrote.
St. Bonaventure began the 2025-26 college basketball season 11-2, but the Bonnies could not sustain that start, going 4-14 in the Atlantic 10 regular season, including losing six of their last seven games.
Schmidt’s wards ranked 13th in the A-10 tournament and outplayed No. 12 La Salle and No. 5 George Mason in the first two rounds to move to the quarterfinals, where they will face No. 4 Dayton on Friday afternoon.
