Mateen Yeaton: From Hall of Famer To College Coach (DDS:CB)

[Izulde]

Mr. Jestor's been pestering me for weeks now, asking what it is I plan to do with my life now that I've ended my NBA career. I keep telling him he'll see when he checks the papers.

You see, I knew I was done when Andre Miller moved me to the inactive list for most of my last season. And I was okay with that. I just wanted to be a part of the Sacramento Kings team that brought the city its first championship. Didn't happen, but we gave it a great effort.

Once I knew I was retiring, I started making inquiries and talking to some people. Because I've known for a long time now what I want to do with my after-NBA career.

I want to be a college coach.

My wife thinks I'm crazy not to take the job Jestor offered me and complains that she was hoping she and Perry, my son, would see a lot more of me now that I retired. She just doesn't understand how much love I have for the game.

It's funny how the words "NBA Hall of Famer" draw people like flies to honey. I had so many offers in the first three days after my Hall of Fame induction, it was ridiculous. So what I wound up doing was just pouring out all the offers out on the dining room table and going through them one by one.

Here's a list of the offers, in case you were wondering. Sorted by conference.

America East
Maine
Hartford
Albany
UMBC
Stony Brook
New Hampshire
Vermont

Atlantic 10
Fordham
Duquesne
La Salle
Dayton
St. Joseph's
Rhode Island
St. Bonaventure
Charlotte

Atlantic Sun
Stetson
North Florida
Belmont
Lipscomb
Mercer
Gardner-Webb
Kennesaw State
East Tennessee State
SC Upstate
Jacksonville
Campbell
Florida Gulf Coast

Big East
DePaul
South Florida
Rutgers

Big Sky
Northern Colorado
Montana State
Portland State
Weber State
Sacramento State
Eastern Washington
Idaho State
Northern Arizona
Montana

Big South
Liberty
Charleston Southern
VMI
UNC-Asheville
High Point
Winthrop
Coastal Carolina
Radford

Big Ten
Penn State

Big 12
Baylor
Colorado
Nebraska

Big West
Pacific
Cal State-Northridge
UC-Poly
UC-Riverside
UC-Davis
UC-Irvine
Long Beach State
Cal State-Fullerton
Cal State-Santa Barbara

Colonial
UNC-Wilmington
Delaware
Old Dominion
Northeastern
Drexel
Hofstra
Towson
James Madison
Georgia State
George Mason
Virginia Commonwealth

Conference USA
Marshall
Central Florida
Southern Miss
SMU
UTEP
East Carolina
UAB

Horizon
Illinois-Chicago
Wright State
Butler
Loyola-Chicago
Youngstown State
UW-Milwaukee
Cleveland State
Valparaiso
Detroit
UW-Green Bay

Metro Atlantic
St. Peter's
Niagra
Marist
Rider
Canisius
Fairfield
Iona
Manhattan
Siena
Loyola (MD)

MAC
Miami (OH)
Western Michigan
Northern Illinois
Buffalo
Akron
Ball State
Bowling Green
Eastern Michigan
Ohio
Toledo
Central Michigan

MEAC
Hampton
South Carolina State
Maryland Eastern Shore
North Carolina A&T
Delaware State
Morgan State
Bethune-Cookman
Norfolk State
Howard
Coppin State
Florida A&M

Missouri Valley
Drake
Bradley
Evansville
Northern Iowa
Wichita State
Missouri State
Indiana State
Illinois State

Mountain West
San Diego State
TCU
Wyoming
Colorado State

Northeast
St. Francis (NY)
Central Connecticut State
St. Francis (PA)
Monmouth
Quinnipiac
Mount Saint Mary's
Wagner
Robert Morris
Sacred Heart
Long Island
Fairleigh Dickinson

Ohio Valley
Tennessee State
Eastern Kentucky
Eastern Illinois
Jacksonville State
Tennessee Tech
Southeast Missouri State
Morehead State
Samford
Tennessee-Martin
Austin Peay
Murray State

Pac-10
Arizona State
Washington State
Oregon State

Patriot
American

SEC
South Carolina

Southern
Appalachian State
Western Carolina
UNC-Greensboro
Wofford
The Citadel
Elon
Georgia Southern
Charleston
UT-Chattanooga

Southland
Central Arkansas
Texas-Corpus Christi
Sam Houston State
Nicholls State
McNeese State
Northwestern State
Texas-San Antonio
Lamar
Texas-Arlington
Stephen F. Austin
Southeastern Louisiana
Texas State

SWAC
Jackson State
Southern
Prairie View A&M
Arkansas-Pine Bluff
Alcorn State
Mississippi Valley State
Alabama A&M
Texas Southern
Grambling
Alabama State

Sun Belt
Arkansas-Little Rock
Denver
Middle Tennessee State
North Texas
Western Kentucky
Florida International
Louisiana-Lafayette
South Alabama
Louisiana-Monroe
Arkansas State
New Orleans
Troy
Florida Atlantic

Summit
North Dakota State
Oakland
IUPUI
Western Illinois
IPFW
Oral Roberts
Southern Utah
Centenary
UMKC
South Dakota State

West Coast
Santa Clara
San Diego
Loyola Marymount
Portland
San Francisco
Pepperdine
St. Mary's (CA)

WAC
New Mexico State
Utah State
Idaho
Fresno State
Hawaii
Boise State
San Jose State
Louisiana Tech

The press got wind of some of these offers and all of a sudden, everybody's speculating about where I'll end up. A lot of people are saying I'll go to one of the Pac-10 schools, with Oregon State the frontrunner.

But that's not going to happen. Jestor hates Oregon State on the same level he does Minnesota, Texas and Yale and I'm not going to do that to one of my best friends. Especially not when I have so many offers.

That Arizona State job is darn tempting, though. The Phoenix/Tempe area is pretty and their expectations are pretty modest for a big conference school: Make the NIT, finish in the top half of the conference and above .500 and improve the school's prestige. Obviously the money's not a factor, but $225,000 a year for 3 years is some nice coin for a rookie coach. ASU's facilities are pretty nice, too.

But you know, even though the Sun Devils haven't been to the NCAA tournament since all the way back in 2003 and their best finish was the Elite 8 in 1975, I want to go to a school that doesn't have much in the way of basketball history at all and to build a program up from obscurity.

It's one of the reasons why I'm not going to Indiana State, which at least has that great Larry Bird-led 1979 run to the NCAA championship game. Lots of folks are speculating me to the Sycamores, which makes sense, I suppose. The Hoosiers aren't calling and I love my home state.

But it's not going to happen. Not only because of the Bird factor, but because Indiana State's got a poor academic reputation. Granted, I don't value academics enough to land a job at an Ivy League school or anything, but I don't want to coach a bunch of blockheads, either.

So, after finally convincing my wife I'm not really crazy, we sit down and start identifying factors we want in a school.

Me:
1. At least average academics
2. Minimal historical success
3. At least decent facilities
4. No pressure for postseason tournament in the first year

Wife:
1. No place in Texas
2. Prefers Indiana or the West coast, except Los Angeles

Juanita, as you can see, only had geographic worries on her mind. She knows me well enough to know that I have my own ideas about what makes a good job and after traveling with me from Bloomington to Indianapolis to Denver to Sacramento, that I'll make the move I have to when I have to make it.

Oh and I have no intention of taking that Penn State job. The only Big 10 coaching position I'll take is with my alma mater because I'm a Hoosier for life.

We cut it down to 14 schools and surprisingly, most of them are in the South, primarily in North Carolina.

The list:

East Carolina
Georgia State
Georgia Southern
Iona
Illinois State
James Madison
McNeese State
Middle Tennessee State
Montana State
New Orleans
North Carolina A&T
UNC-Wilmington
Wagner
Western Carolina

Juanita doesn't want a big city or to live in New York, either the city or the state after we talk it over some more, so out the door go Georgia State, Iona, New Orleans and Wagner. I've been to Normal, IL and find it an extremely dull town, so that eliminates Illinois State.

After some more thought, we cross off North Carolina A&T and McNeese State. Middle Tennessee State, UNC-Wilmington and James Madison have all won NCAA tournament games, so that gives us, ironically enough, a Final Four.

Final Four Schools
East Carolina
Georgia Southern
Montana State
Western Carolina

Four schools, all with varying degrees of NCAA tournament appearances, none of whom have won a game. North Carolina has a slew of schools all fighting for recruits and the same in Georgia, which would make for interesting battles.

And so, I decide to go interview at each of the four schools in question. East Carolina's offering me $150,000 a year for 3 years and Western Carolina's throwing a huge contract for such a lightweight school - $224,000 for a year for 4 years. Georgia Southern's offering $222,000 a year for 4 years and Montana State's scraping together a contract for $150,000 a year for 4 years.

Western Carolina and Georgia Southern have really nice facilities for their level, but whereas the WCU AD says he only wants to avoid a last-place finish and to win 10+ games, GSU's athletic director insists on a top half finish and a winning record. East Carolina's AD recognizes that they play in a much better conference than the others in C-USA, so he only has the same demands as Western Carolina. At WCU, GSU and ECU I'd also be required to raise the prestige of the program, whereas Montana State simply wants me to avoid last place in the Big Sky and to win 10 or more games.

After I take my visits and conduct my interviews, I narrow it down to Western Carolina and Montana State. I love the low-pressure atmosphere at WCU combined with their commitment to winning by flashing the cash to land me and having such good facilities. Georgia Southern struck me as having expectations, that while certainly reasonable, create more of a pressure cooker situation. And as for East Carolina, well, the student body is much more supportive of and involved with the school's football team and I don't want to be a second-tier program.

Montana State's a curious one that I can't explain why it appeals to me. There's just something about going to a remote state like Montana, where the in-state talent is likely to be almost nil and building the program up that attracts my odd enjoyment of a challenge.

Cullowhee, NC, shocks me with how small it is. Just under 4,000 residents, the university -is- the town and the student population is double that of the town's. Bozeman is your typical college town, with a population of about 30,000.

Both universities are surrounded by breathtaking natural scenery, with Bozeman being much greener than I'd anticipated it would be, though that's all relative of course.

After visiting both campuses and the towns, I can see why WCU is ponying up the money it is. There's not too many people who'd like a town -this- tiny, but I find it charming in its smallness. I don't know if I'd want to spend my whole career here, but it seems like a nice place to start.

Initially, I was leaning towards Montana State for the challenge it offers, but the more Juanita and I discuss the two choices and the more I think about it, the more I realize Western Carolina is where I want to be.

And so I contact the AD to let him know I'm coming to Cullowhee.

[fpres]

I was a big fan of Mateen Yeaton in your "Restoring the Glory" dynasty, so I'll definitely be following this one.

[BYU 14]

Great to see the Mateen Yeaton saga will not end.

[Izulde]

fpres: Me too. Thanks!

BYU 14: I agree!

[Izulde]

NBA Hall of Famer Mateen Yeaton Named New Catamounts Head Coach


NBA Hall of Famer Mateen Yeaton set to take the reins of the Catamount men's basketball team

In a stunning development that no one could have predicted, 40 year old recent NBA Hall of Fame inductee Mateen Yeaton has agreed to become the Western Carolina University Catamounts men's basketball head coach. In doing so, the three-time NBA champion spurned offers from far more prestigious and storied programs, such as Pac-10 schools Oregon State and Arizona State.

A horde of journalists flooded tiny Cullowhee, NC (pop. 3,997) for the new coach's first press conference, hoping to hear why he would choose this sleepy town and undistinguished college.

"I wanted the chance to give a school a taste of success it's never had before", Yeaton remarked.

"The athletic department here is very committed to building a winning program, including an impressive array of facilities while never forgetting that the role of the student in our student-athletes is just as important as what they bring to the court. While I can't promise any national championships in the near future, what I -can- guarantee is a restoration of competitive Catamount basketball over the next few seasons and beyond.

Cullowhee's a great place to raise a family and that was also important to me. My son Perry will benefit from the pleasant life a small North Carolina town can bring a person and with another little one on the way, that became an even more important factor in my decision."

Yeaton declined to outline what type of system he intends to run, saying only that he was flexible and open to changing things based on the players on hand.

Whether he can raise the Catamount program to new heights remains to seen, for a Hall of Fame playing pedigree is not an automatic ticket to coaching success. But what Yeaton's hiring has already done is generate a buzz and an excitement on the WCU campus never before seen in the history of its men's basketball team.

***End Article***

Because I was so late to the hiring game, finding a staff proved more difficult than I thought. I'll probably be changing assistants soon, with one notable exception.

Jamar Hess is 54 and the only white dude I know named Jamar. But he's one of the most brilliant scouting minds I've ever known and I bet if he wanted it, he could be a director of scouting for an NBA team. He doesn't care about that, though. To be honest, doesn't care about anything but talking about basketball. He said he'll stick with me for as long as I want him around and I'm holding him to that as I've named him my first assistant and he'll be my right-hand man as we work on the team.

The other guys are your basic run-of-the-mill low-level college basketball assistants. Neither P.J. Pebbles nor James McDermott have a place in my future plans for this program, especially not with how self-promoting McD is.

Jamar and I meet in my office a few weeks after my hiring's officially announced to discuss the current state of the team. I ask him to tell me about our guys as if I didn't know anything about them.

"Our best player's Brent Madic, no doubt about it. Best scorer, best shooter, best passer, best defender. He's only a sophomore, which is a real blessing and I see in that kid a possible superstar in this league. Point guard's his natural position and he's got NBA size at 6'4, 209 lbs. That said, he'd probably be even better at the 2, but we don't have any better passers. Works his butt off, too.

Senior Alvan Walton is our second best player in just about every area and like Madic, he's a guard, but he's a native SG. My recommendation would be to have those two as our starting backcourt.

Our frontcourt is where things get a bit dicey. We don't have any real great players in that area. For our C spot, I'd say Tommy Lee. He's a senior, average rebounder for this level and one of the best combination handlers/defenders out of our bigs. Senior Kenyan Hansen is probably the best option for starting at PF. Not a standout in any area, but does enough right that he should get the nod.

As for small forward, I'd go with another senior, Brad Bryant. He can do a little bit of everything, so he's a good glue type guy to have out there. Or you may want to think about a 3 guard set. We've got a freshman, Chris Thurman, who I love the potential of and who could be another Madic. Matt Satchel looks good too, as a sophomore. Size-wise, he's better fitted to the point, but his skill set says SG.

As for big depth or big future prospects, forget about it. It should be our biggest priority in recruiting. Tough row ahead for us this year, what with four scholarships and all."

We discuss it some more and realize that we have a huge problem. None of the likely three guard sets can produce anyone bigger than Madic, as everyone else is 6' even. In fact, we're pretty small all around.

It's decided to wait until after practice starts to sort out the problem for sure, but I stick Bryant in there for now. We're in agreement that Motion should be our main offense, since that's what most of the guys are comfortable with and it's the best one that fits our profile. We also retain some High Post, but not as much as the previous coach's. I'm also introducing a third system into the mix, that of the Triangle, which I think could work well once our guys adapt to it.

The budget has $73,250 left in it after salaries are all paid off. It's a big recruiting year with four scholarships, but it's my opinion that if we're going to start making strides, we need to spend like we're a bigger program, so I buy the Gold Report for the Atlantic East region. I don't anticipate we'll be able to land any national-level elite players, so the only summer camp I register for is the Big Apple Showcase. Still leaves us with just under $40,000 to recruit with, which is plenty.

I find out just before recruiting that we have the full boat of 5 scholarships available, which means I'll be able to put my stamp on this team quickly.

Recruiting

A rude shock when a player I thought for sure would be interested, PF Thomas Manheimer, declines to come in for a campus visit. Luckily, some other high-profile recruits were willing to come visit.

I identify a player right off the bat that I want, SF Jon Stokes from North Buncome High in Weaverville, NC. Getting him is going to be an uphill battle, as he's a consensus Top 5 player in our region, but we're committing everything we have to him. PG Jason Mitchell, a somewhat short, but good-looking PG from Northwest Guiliford High in Greensboro, NC, gets our other immediate scholarship offer.

Unfortunately, Stokes and Mitchell have dreams of bigger cities and bigger schools than others and are nonplussed by what they see here in our small town.

So with heavy heart, I inform them that their offers are withdrawn. In their place steps SF James Ranick from Monroe High in Monroe, NC, who I like more the more I see of him. A week later, a second scholarship offer gets extended to PF Stephan Kamara from Jones Senior High in Trenton, NC.

After a Top 25 showing at the Big Apple, C Bryan Layton from Enloe High in Raleigh, NC gets an offer and C Jerry Woodley did well enough at the same camp that we give him an offer as well. He's from West Wilkes high in Miller's Creek, NC. Our final first round of scholarship offers goes to PG Byron Brown, who can't shoot worth a lick, but looks to be a terrific passer and ballhandler and, perhaps most importantly, absolutely loved everything about the campus when he came to visit.

It becomes pretty clear after a while that Stephan Kamara isn't going to come here, so we pull his offer and give it to SF Ryan Jones from Pender County High in Burgaw, NC, who enjoyed his campus visit.

When the updated Top 10 lists come out towards the end of August, we've shot up to #4 on Bryan Layton's list behind St. Joseph's, Providence and Seton Hall, are #5 for Ryan Jones behind Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, Providence and Seton Hall and #8 on James Rancik's Top 10, with Charlotte, Wake Forest and North Carolina his first 3 choices.

September 18th - First Week of Verbals

Yeaton Already Showing Magic

Even if Mateen Yeaton leaves for greener pastures at the end of his four year contract with Western Carolina, he's already made a huge splash for the Catamounts program.

C Bryan Layton, a 4 star prospect, considered one of the Top 25 Cs in the Atlantic East and a Top 25 player at the Big Apple Showcase, gave a verbal commitment to WCU today along with SF Ryan Jones, another 4 star recruit that Scouts.com rates as a Top 100 Overall player in the Atlantic East. Both natives of North Carolina, the two players credited Yeaton's persuasiveness during an in-home visit for their commitment.

"We both really wanted to play close to home", Layton said in a phone interview, "Coach Yeaton convinced us that we could have our friends and family watch us play at Western Carolina and he sold Ryan's parents and mine on what a safe, great place Cullowhee is to go to school."

Jones said in another interview, "To be honest, when I first started this whole looking at colleges thing, WCU wasn't even on my radar. I didn't want to go to such a small town. I was thinking more Virginia Tech or St. Joseph's, maybe even Seton Hall. But Coach convinced me I'll get a lot more out of Cullowhee than I first thought."

***End Article***

The news gets even bigger the following week.

Top 50 Nationwide C Commits To Catamounts

Mateen Yeaton's pulled off his third straight coup of the recruiting season, snapping up another 4-star prospect and one of the nation's Top 50 Cs and a Top 400 overall player in C Jerry Woodley, the third North Carolina product to give his verbal to Western Carolina this season.

"I wanted to play close to home and somewhere where I'd be able to play a lot right away", said Woodley after announcing his decision. "WCU gives me the opportunity to fulfill both those dreams. And I get a chance to play for an NBA Hall of Famer in Coach Yeaton. I mean, really, how many guys you know get the chance to say that?"

Along with Bryan Layton and Ryan Jones, suddenly the Catamounts are on the verge of their greatest class in school history, even with James Rancik's decision to go to Seton Hall.

***End Article***

I'm a little bummed about Rancik, who would've been a rebounder for us, something we lack right now, but I really don't have any complaints about our class. Oh and Byron Brown wound up verbaling to Gardner-Webb after I pulled his scholarship offer. I don't like doing that when a kid's interested, but we never rated higher than #3 on his list and I wasn't that thrilled with his abilities.

Our unexpected recruiting success has guys who wouldn't give us the time of day before suddenly looking at us, like PG Rob Gaines from Indian River High in Philadelphia, NY. I'd kill to get a PG like that on our team, who from all our scouting could be a starter as a true freshman, just like everyone else we've landed so far. Gaines gets the offer and we take a shot in the dark at PF David Holden out of Caesar Rodney High in Camden-Wyoming, DE. Our chances of getting him are virtually nil, but I'm going to shoot for the moon.

Naturally, we don't get Holden, who heads to Oklahoma State instead, but we get a verbal from Rob Gaines, giving us four 4* players in my first-ever recruiting class. Being a Hall of Famer is an incredible enticement for these guys, a couple of whom say after they give their verbals that they idolized me when they were growing up. I don't know if I'm deserving of that level of admiration, but if it helps, I'll take it.

We honestly don't need another guard, so SG Brenden Roe only gets tabbed for a call and watch after he accepts the invite to visit our campus. C Tim Perdue, a relative of former NBA-er Will Perdue and the only A rated rebounder left without a commitment, refuses our visit offer, but gets a scholarship dangled anyway. We went through that routine with Rob Gaines after all.

But Perdue's sold on St. Joseph's and that's where the Maryland native goes. No problem as we simply switch to Roe, who hails from Laconia High in Laconia, NH. We really could use a good rebounder, but that may have to wait until next year. As it is, the class we've assembled will likely be a powerhouse in the Southern Conference if they're anywhere close to as good as advertised.

What -is- a problem is that there's chemistry issues already on our current team. Jesse Hedde and James Cleaves are getting pretty heated with each other and that annoys me, because they're both scrubs. I call them each in my office and Cleaves says he'll clean up, but Hedde refuses responsibility and tells me to drop it before he gets mad.

...We'll see how mad he gets when I bury him on the bench until he shapes up.

Then Matt Hansen gets in a couple tiffs and after I suggest he be more personable, he says he can't change his personality and that maybe it's other people who can't get along with him.

I have my concerns, but I give Matt Hansen and Mike Moore our two redshirts, in hopes that they'll both mature physically and that Hansen will mature mentally without the pressures of playing.

This year is going to be a rough season, but even if we don't find another player for that fifth scholarship or even if it goes unfilled, we should be set as a dominant force in the conference over the remainder of my first contract.

[MacroGuru]

Wohoo! Another Quality Dynasty for me to read.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by MacroGuru

Wohoo! Another Quality Dynasty for me to read.

Thanks

[Izulde]

Our first game of the year is at home against Virginia Commonwealth. James McDermott did the first round of scouting reports for us, because I didn't trust anyone but Jamar Hess to help me on the recruiting trail. As you can see, it paid off big time.

So I don't really take McDermott's report with any seriousness and barely even look at it. He pays me back by stealing my lineup card and changing it to what he thinks should be our starting five. His butt is so done.

A minute ticks off the clock before the first score of the game, a 3 pointer drained by Alvan Walton to pump up the crowd and give me my first ever lead as a college coach.

From there, it's a slow-paced back and forth game that gets knotted up 7-7 before Brent Madic nails a trey to make it 10-7 a little over five minutes into the first half. They answer it a few minutes later to tie it again.

One thing I've noticed is that the Rams' Odell Peterson is just killing us on rebounds. Not even halfway through the first, he's already grabbed seven boards. Nick Robinson may be undersized for a C, but he's also our best rebounder, so I stick him out there on Peterson to try and limit the damage.

Virginia Commonwealth takes their first lead of the game following 2 free throws to make it 12-10 on a foul by Brent Madic and he picks up his second one less than a minute later. Not good.

But we seize the lead back after another Walton 3 pointer shortly after the 10 minute mark, going up 17-16. It's been a tight battle so far and a fun one for the home fans to watch.

Then things start to unravel and by the time 5:06 is up on the scoreboard, we're staring at our biggest deficit, down 26-22. I call a timeout and tell the players to up their defensive intensity, because the Rams are doing whatever they want on offense.

It works, but we go into the locker room down 37-32 after Chris Corner hits a 3 pointer just before the half expires. Corner's been killing us all game; 4/5 including 2/2 from 3 point range for 10 points. Both teams overall are shooting badly - 39.5% for Virginia Commonwealth, 34.3% for us, though Alvan Walton does have 11 points.

Sticking a double-team on Corner to start the second half works beautifully, as we block his shot and force him into a TO, resulting in 5 straight points for the tie.

Brad Bryant converted a 3 point play (FG + FT) to make the tie and he hits a jump shot exactly one minute later to give us our first lead in a long time at 39-37.

But before too long, they go on a run and we're down an ugly 55-43. Nothing I'm trying is working and it's getting really, really frustrating. We can't hit shots and they're making them.

After a lot of effort and Virginia Commonwealth's finally cooling off, we get it back under double-digits at 62-54, but there's 6:13 left and I'm not sure, with how erratic our shooting hasn't been, if that's enough time.

It gets as close as 6, but my alleged star 3-point shooting lineup does nothing and we lose my coaching debut 73-62. 33.8% from the field, 18.8% from 3-point range. Ugly, ugly numbers. In contrast, Virginia Commonwealth converted 43.1% of their shots, 38.9% from downtown.

We still learned a ton about ourselves as a team from this game, such as we need Brent Madic to play a lot more than 23 minutes. I hope this foul trouble won't become a pattern. Alvan Walton didn't make a single shot in the second half and finished 4/19, 3/12 from 3 point range. Chris Thurman was just as bad, hitting only 1 of his 12 attempts. On the other hand, Ed Drexler and Jason Cleaves played well with the limited minutes they were given and Cleaves in particular looks like he could be our primary backup at PG. Brad Bryant played great, the senior shooting a respectable 42.9% for a team high 14 points. He also had 6 assists and 8 rebounds. Tommy Lee, our starting senior, C, picked up 6 points, 10 rebounds and a block and I'd like to see him play a more active role in the offense.

I got slammed hard in the papers, with columnists talking trash about how just because I was a Hall of Famer, it didn't mean I can coach. That made me mad and even more determined to make this team be successful as soon as this season.

Oh, I forgot to mention, we're picked to finish fourth in the Southern Conference behind UT-Chattanooga, Davidson and Georgia Southern, one of the schools I considered. It creates a little bit of pressure for me, but we'll see what happens. Sure is nice seeing that Coach: Mateen Yeaton in the magazines, though.

Prairie View A&M is our next opponent, but I can't really say anything about them because they haven't played yet.

...We're down 9-0 before I even have time to blink. What's wrong with these guys? It's 15-2 in a hurry and once again, nothing's coming close to working. By the time we're down 20-4, I toss the clipboard to Jamar in disgust and tell him to take over for the rest of the game.

41-28 at the half, which is better than I expected. Alvan Walton's starting job is gone, though. He's 0/5 thus far and I can't have that kind of performance from one of my starters.

...And then it happens.

Under Jamar's direction, they not only storm back to tie it up, but they charge all the way to a 71-70 win. The defense goes into overdrive, Brent Madic scores 20, Kenyan Hansen has 16 points himself and we hold Prairie View A&M to 38.1% shooting when all is said and done.

The players celebrate on the court, but I can't take any happiness in it. It wasn't me that did it; it's all Jamar.

He and I talk after the game and he tells me, "Look, Mateen. You have to understand, the college game isn't the pro game. Things that worked in the NBA won't cut it here. There's too many different variables at play that you have to take in consideration. I know you can do this, but it's going to take time and patience."

Time I know I have. Patience, I'm not so sure about.

Particularly not when my pride just took a load of buckshot to the gut.

[Izulde]

Jamar and I lock ourselves in my office for most of the day after the Prairie View A&M game, wrestling with how to improve the team.

"We should switch to more of a system", Jamar advises, "These kids really aren't talented enough to create on their own all the time and besides, most of them have some degree of familiarity with the motion scheme. I'd also increase the amount of high post game we use, for much the same reasons."

I end up taking all of his suggestions, because they make sense. I also banish Alvan Walton to the bench. 5 for 28, or 17.9%, just isn't going to cut it. Our new lineup is as follows:

PG Brent Madic (SO)
SG Brad Bryant (SR)
SF Kenyan Hansen (SR)
PF Ed Drexler (SO)
C Tommy Lee (SR)

Our third straight home game is next, against the Rice Owls. They're from a much bigger conference, but they don't look like much on paper. I think it's a winnable one.

Brent Madic gets things started with a highlight 3 point play, taking his 6'0 self up for a slam dunk and drawing the foul on top of it.

We look so much better than we did the first two games with the changes Jamar and I made. At the 10:00 mark of the first half, we're up 15-11, which I'll gladly take.

Our first ever double-digit lead in my coaching career comes with just under 5 minutes in the first half, after a pair of Brent Madic free throws makes it 32-21. Much, much better.

So much better that we're up 45-30 at the half, shooting 58.6%. Brent Madic already has 13 points and 4 assists and I feel like we're starting to develop a real sense of who and what this team is.

The Owls make a run to get as close as 7, but then we start finding our stride again and are up by 12 at the halfway point. That 12 point lead is cut to 10 as we get to the 5 minute remaining mark, but we're still pretty much in control of this game. Ed Drexler has been great down low for us and Alvan Walton looks much better as a sub than a starter.

And that's when our offense goes cold and the Owls start to catch fire. What was once a 62-52 scoreline is now 63-57 and there's 2:13 left on the clock.

63-60 - 1:20 left

I call a timeout and go with the lineup of players who've done the best so far this half, which turns out to be:

PG Matt Satchell (Fr)
SG Jason Cleaves (Jr)
SF Brad Bryant (Sr)
PF Jesse Hedde (Sr)
C Tommy Lee (Sr)

I would've gone with Ed Drexler too, but I also wanted the healthiest unit possible. As the clock hits 1:03, Satchell hits a shot inside to make it 65-60 and Lee comes up with a stop on the other end to give us the ball back, 52 seconds left on the clock. Satchell then induces Owl PG Derek Ledoux to commit his fourth foul of the night and the sophomore steps up with two huge free throws to make it a 67-60 game. The Owls convert on the other end and intentional fouling starts with 37 seconds, Ledoux handed his fifth to bow out. Satchell goes 1 of 2 on those free throws to give us a 6 point cushion and then ices the game by hitting both the next time he's fouled.

Final - Rice 62 Western Carolina 70

Our shooting really fell off in the second half, in part because Brent Madic suddenly couldn't hit anything. Still, 41.4% isn't horrible relative to what we'd been doing. The Owls never lead once all game and that's important. Madic finished with a team-high 15 points, but really it was Ed Drexler (10 points, 9 rebounds, a steal) and Tommy Lee (7 points, 3 assists, 6 rebounds, 4 steals and 2 blocks) that had the best all-around games, along with Matt Satchell's 7 points in 4 minutes. Alvan Walton made some nice defensive plays, but he was also 2/9 and his eagerness to take shots contributed in large part to Rice's comeback.

Good news and bad news after the win.

Good news: Bryan Layton, Jerry Woodley and Ryan Jones showed up together to officially sign their LOIs. They were all chatting about how excited they are to be part of something special, something never before seen in WCU history and they hope to build on that when they get here.

Our two non-North Carolina natives, Rob Gaines and Brendan Roe didn't sign a LOI and Roe hasn't give anyone so much as a verbal yet, but we'll keep working these guys and see if we can land them.

Even if the worst happens and Gaines decommits and Roe goes elsewhere, three locked and sealed 4-star recruits makes this instantaneously the best class in Western Carolina history.

The bad news is Nick Robinson (Jr) has a knee injury. The good news it's just soreness and he should be fine soon.

I really like our sophomores. Madic and Drexler have cemented themselves as starters and I feel like I can start trusting Satchell to run the offense more after Jason Cleaves started getting a little too turnover-prone in the second half.

[Swaggs]

Are Gaines' grades/scores not up to par for the school he verballed to?

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Swaggs

Are Gaines' grades/scores not up to par for the school he verballed to?

His GPA is 2.0, which is a little worrisome, but SAT scores haven't been released yet.

And some guys sign their LOIs in the early period, some don't, even with a verbal. Doesn't have anything to do with GPA or test scores, I don't believe.

[Autumn]

Another interesting dynasty. I dont' know anything about this game and not much about college basketball, so it will be interesting to me. Quite a different challenge.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Autumn

Another interesting dynasty. I dont' know anything about this game and not much about college basketball, so it will be interesting to me. Quite a different challenge.

Indeed. College basketball is much more prone to streaks and inconsistent results. I'm finding it's best to really pay attention and ride the hot hand as it were, hence the Madic-less lineup at the end of the game. (though Satchell's actually a SO, not a FR).

I'm really looking forward to when the recruiting class comes in next year, though.

[Izulde]

We aren't the smartest team in the classroom. Matt Satchell has a team-high 2.9 GPA, but on the other hand, our lowest GPA is 2.1, shared by seniors Alvan Walton and Brad Bryant. Not a bad situation to be in. Our recruits fit that mold as well, with nobody having a 3.0, but there -is- a bit of worry with Rob Gaines, who's borderline with a 2.0 GPA.

But as long as they pass, it's all good. I wasn't the best student at Indiana myself.

DePaul may be 0-2, but they're still a higher conference team like Rice. In fact, even bigger in that they're Big East, whereas Rice was just Conference USA.

Both teams get off to a slow start offensively, so that five minutes into the game, it's 6-4, our favor. Shots just haven't been falling and DePaul's running a slow-tempo game besides.

Then both teams catch a little more fire and it turns into a back-and-forth battle. Chris Thurman comes off the bench for two quick buckets to keep it close and with 9:14 left in the first, it's WCU 17 DePaul 16.

The Demons storm back for a 3 point lead, the biggest of any of us in the game, but then we respond with a huge run powered by Alvan Walton and D.J. Smith. Smith's getting a lot more minutes and opportunity while Nick Robinson's injured and he's making the most of it in this game.

By the end of the first half, we're up 41-29 thanks to a buzzer-beater 3 pointer from Matt Satchell. 60.7% field goal shooting goes a long way to establishing a dominant game and Brad Bryant's our leading scorer with 9 points at the intermission.

Our offense keeps going on a tear and we go up by 20 at two separate points before the 10 minute mark, where a Brad Bryant trey extends our lead to 62-38, as I gradually start putting in the reserves.

And yet, despite the fact that I empty the bench as much as possible, except for the injured Nick Robinson, this is a night on which we can do no wrong and we stomp DePaul 86-54. A beautiful 32 point victory over a Big East team, no matter how bottom-feeder they are, is wonderful.

63.6% shooting. That's how unstoppable we were and this on a night where everyone but Robinson log at least 7 minutes. Brad Bryant lead the slaughter with 15 points, but Jesse Hedde came off the bench for 10 points as did D.J. Smith. Another noteworthy performance was freshman Tony Collins's 8 points in 8 minutes, including 2 of 2 on 3 pointers.

Interestingly enough, Collins and fellow freshman Chris Thurman are starting to get unhappy. Not surprising, given the recruiting class we've got coming in, but Collins wants more minutes and Thurman thinks he should be a starter.

Collins I can give more minutes to, but Thurman as a starter isn't happening. We're overloaded on guards on this team and a player really is going to have stand out and the starters falter to get a spot on the front five. The Madic/Bryant/Hansen/Drexler/Lee setup is working great and I'm not going to mess with that without a compelling reason to do so.

[Autumn]

I like the sound of this Satchell already. Nice win.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Autumn

I like the sound of this Satchell already. Nice win.

Thanks.

I don't want to make him the starter, though. Madic's simply too talented to be on the bench and Satchell's doing well enough from the reserve role.

[Izulde]

Our AD was quite shrewd in getting us a soft, home-heavy schedule for my first year, because we're playing host to Fairfield for our next game. They have 3 seniors, a junior and a freshman for their starting five, but the Stags look like lightweights.

They jump out to a 3-2 lead following a 3-point, but then we go on a 8-0 run to make it 11-3. We're looking like we're on our way to another easy win when the Stags suddenly go on a streak of their own and just like that, it's 19-19 at the halfway mark of the first half.

Sloppy ballhandling by Fairfield and just efficient enough shooting on our end puts us up 36-24 at halftime. We're shooting 52% to Fairfield's 31%, but both teams are incredibly sloppy with ball. 8 TOs for us, 10 for the Stags. Brad Bryant has been a perfect 3/3 for 7 points so far, while Tommy Lee's netted 5 points and 5 rebounds, as we're taking a balanced approach on offense.

Tommy Lee picks up a three-pack of 2s to start the second half: 2 points, 2 rebounds, 2 fouls, so I sit him as a precaution. Nonetheless, we find ways to pick up the scoring slack and stake a 56-37 lead with 10:00 left in the game.

From there, we finally do stroll, taking home an 80-53 win. Brent Madic and Ed Drexler each score 10 points and we just have a really great all-around game from just about everyone but a few people who will go unnamed.

Our first really big test is on the last game of the month. Clemson may be 1-3, but they're an ACC squad and a legit one despite their 1-3 record.

What's immediately apparent is just how much better this team defensively is than anyone else we've played so far. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they have trouble hitting shots and so by the halfway point of the first half, we've secured a 19-7 lead, thanks mostly to Kenyan Hansen's 8 points.

Shockingly, the Tigers don't score another FG until 2:30 left in the half, a drought that dooms them to to a 42-22 halftime deficit. 26.1% shooting for Clemson at halftime. Tony Collins nails 3 treys off the bench and already has 11 points in just 4 minutes, but Kenyan Hansen has 8 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks to his credit so far.

My decision to put in a lot of reserves allows the Tigers to claw back to within 14 and I start shuffling in as many starters as I can, hoping they don't get into foul trouble. I refuse to let a lead like this slip away.

After they close the deficit to 10 points, they start fouling, but we hit our free throws down the stretch and stave them off by a final of 71-58. Lot of scoring heroes in this one. Ed Drexler and Tony Collins each score 14 and Tommy Lee picks up 11 points. Player of the Game goes to Kenyan Hansen for his 8 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 3 blocks.

Southern Conference Standings

North

Western Carolina	5-1
UNC-Greensboro		4-2
Elon			4-2
Appalachian State	3-2
UT-Chattanooga		1-4

South

Davidson		5-0
Georgia Southern	4-1
Furman			4-1
Charleston		2-4
The Citadel		1-5
Wofford			1-5

It's great to be 5-1, but really, when you think about it, who have we played? 6 teams who aren't that great, all at home. That's nothing. Out of conference games aren't a good judge of the powers within a league.

Brent Madic is 18th in the conference and our lead scorer right now at 10.3 points a game. Jared Collins from Georgia Southern is #1, averaging 18 points.

It isn't until rebounding that we start seeing Top 10 in conference, where we have Kenyan Hansen (4th - 6.2) and Tommy Lee (T-7th - 5.7). Hansen's also tied for third in blocks with 1.3 and Alvan Walton's right behind with 1.2 Tommy Lee's 8th in rejections, averaging one a game. He's also 3rd in the conference in steals, with 1.7 swipes a game.

I'd love to have a player dominate the conference in scoring, but we're just not that kind of team right now. We rely on balance and turning to whoever it is hot on any given night.

[Izulde]

December kicks off against another higher conference bottom-feeder, but we're finally going on the road, taking the long flight all the way to Honolulu for a game against the Rainbow Warriors. I tell the boys not to get wrapped up in the gorgeous weather and girls there, but stay focused on the game.

Everyone comes out cold and it isn't until 3 minutes after the game's started that the first points go on the board after an Ed Drexler layup.

Hawaii doesn't even score their first FG until 6 minutes in, but then they score 10 unanswered points to grab a 12-10 lead with 12:20 left in the half. Having Kenyan Hansen and Ed Drexler sitting on the bench because of 2 quick fouls a piece doesn't help matters either.

In fact, it's an ugly, foul-plagued first half and Hawaii keeps hitting 3 point shots. Still, when the dust finally clears at the half, we're clinging to a slender 41-40 lead. Brent Madic has scored all 8 of his points from the charity stripe, where he's 8 of 9 so far.

55 seconds into the second half, Ed Drexler picks up his 4th foul, which really puts a crimp in our lineup.

In fact, it's all downhill from there as Hawaii keeps hitting their 3s and we can't make a shot worth anything. So the end loss of 74-63 isn't too surprising. Not when the Warriors hit 50% of their 3 point attempts (11/22) and for the first time in my coaching career, we surrender a 20 point player in Tyler Stackhouse, a senior guard. Brent Madic scored 14, but by and large, we stunk that second half and were reminded of just how far we have to go yet as a team.

No surprise that we're on the road as well for our next game, though Tennessee Tech isn't going to offer anywhere near the temptations that Honolulu did.

Unfortunately, we can't make a shot for any money and Tennessee Tech keeps stealing the ball from our PGs, who suddenly have forgotten how to pass. So we're down 19-8 at the 10 minute mark and it's getting uglier by the second. So ugly that it's 47-28 at the half and Golden Eagle senior Gene Henderson already has 21 points. Sure makes D.J. Smith's 11 halftime points look like nothing.

The second half's a blur, with Gene Henderson breaking out of the double-team to still hit his shots. The Golden Eagles stretch their lead into the 20s before we make a small run to get within 12, but that's as close as we get, bowing out 70-54. Just a rough night all around, even with 10 points from Brent Madic and Chris Thurman. D.J. Smith didn't score once in the second half. Gene Hederson finished with 28 points, 7 points above his 21 point per game average thus far. The sick part is, he's a freshman and presently leads the Ohio Valley in scoring.

I catch the flu and miss the Ohio State game. We lost 75-59 and I'm furious with the lineup that the assistants went with in my absence. Fortunately, I'm back to full-strength right in time for us to head to New York State for a game against #5 Syracuse, off to a great 8-2 start.

Home court advantage goes the Orangemen's way to such degree that even though they're missing every stinking shot, we get whistled for a foul on every miss. I go ballistic on the zebras after their fourth call on us erases the lead we'd had and makes it 7-6 Syracuse with 14:50 left in the first. Then we finally get a call on the other end. I know it's not likely we'll pull off the upset, but leading the 5th ranked team in the country on their own home court for any stretch of time is a good moral victory.

From there, Syracuse's superior talent kicks in and we're down 38-24 at the half.

It gets bad to worse after Kenyan Hansen and Ed Drexler pick up their 4th fouls quickly and a miscommunication results in my not realizing Brent Madic got his 4th foul, so he fouls out 5 and a half minutes into the second half. I go ballistic again and the ref T's me up and it feels good to get it, strangely enough.

Under those conditions, I'm sure it's no surprise to learn that we lose 81-57. Matt Satchell scored 14 off the bench, but also was turnover-prone as our only true highlight in my opinion.

Our 5-1 start has now plummeted to 5-5. Expected, but disappointing.

Southern Conference

North
Appalachian State	6-2
Elon			5-5
UNC-Greensboro		5-5
Western Carolina	5-5

South
Davidson		6-3
Furman			6-3
Georgia Southern	5-3
Charleston		3-7
Wofford			2-7
The Citadel		2-8

[Izulde]

After a review of the starting lineup, I decide to try Jesse Hedde at C, in hopes that Tommy Lee can be an offensive force off the bench. Matt Satchell and Tony Collins should be getting more minutes as well after the lookover, as they're both playing quite well with their time given.

Depending on how Matt Satchell does, Brent Madic could see the bench soon, as his -3.8 +/- stat is second worst on the team to Nick Robinson at -5.7. So much for Madic being a defensive force. Ed Drexler verifies my high opinion of him, as he leads the team in that category at +3.7. Interestingly enough, Alvan Walton is #2 at +2.8, so that's something worth considering.

We get a home game against 1-8 Florida Gulf Coast and it can't come at a better time for us. We need to snap the four-game losing streak and restore our faith in ourselves.

Nice break to start the game as their purported best player, Terry Hawkins, picks up 2 fouls in under 30 seconds. The Jesse Hedde experiment as starter ends quickly, as he goes 0 for 1, then misses two straight free throws.

Florida Gulf Coast can't get anything going tonight and we go up 18-0 before the Eagles finally score their first points of the game, 6 minutes after tipoff.

It's 55-26 at halftime in favor of the Catamounts and we're shooting 64% to FGCU's 24%. We also have a record [b]3 players in double-digit figures at halftime: Kenyan Hansen (14 points), Brad Bryant (12 points) and Brent Madic (10 points). Everybody's
teeing off on the Eagles and it's great.

We just keep pouring it on and while we don't reach the century mark, our 97-55 victory is a salve that soothes our four-game losing streak. Just an out and out gret game by everyone tonight: Brad Bryant with 15 points, Kenyan Hansen scoring 14, Tommy Lee with our first double-double - 10 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 steals, Brent Madic scoring 12 and in an amazing bench performance, Chris Thurman hitting 5 of 6 field goals, including 4 of 5 from 3 point range for 14 points in 13 minutes. It's the kind of complete game victory you dream about.

On the road we go, heading to Lehigh. Despite their 15 prestige rating, the Mountain Hawks are off to a sizzling 9-2 start, so they can't be taken lightly by any means.

The foul bug bites us early, taking out Kenyan Hansen and Ed Drexler. The Mountain Hawks' Eddie Arden starts torching us immediately, but even when I call for a double-team and put Alvan Walton, our best on the ball defender on him, Arden's just too quick to stop. Down 26-14 at the 10:00 mark and looking in major disarray.

It's 43-29 Lehigh at the half and our lack of big man depth is killing us. On the bright side, Tommy Lee is 5/5 with 11 points and 5 rebounds already, but we've gotten a grand total of 3 points from our bench, a trey by Alvan Walton.

If you've been following this team at all, you know the story by now. Kenyan Hansen and Ed Drexler pick up their third fouls fairly early and we're forced to do major juggling. I can't wait until next season when our recruits come in to give us legitimate depth at the forward and center spots.

Lehigh's outside/inside combo of Eddie Arden and Troy Lancaster is just sick. If one doesn't hurt you, the other will. No wonder they're on their way to the their 10th win of the year, as we're down by 20 with 8:22 left.

84-65 final as we get brutalized by junior Troy Lancaster (20 points, 6 rebounds, an assist, 2 steals, a block) and his fellow junior Eddie Arden (18 points). On the flip side, despite giving up so many points, Tommy Lee's been playing like a fire's under him since the Jesse Hedde start, picking up 19 points, 12 rebounds, an assist and a block in the loss. Brad Bryant nabs 11 points on 4/4 shoting, Brent Madic scoring 10.

We're still looking for our first road win as we head to Cedar City, UT to take on the 3-5 Southern Utah Thunderbirds in our final game before starting Southern Conference play.

The T-birds come out aggressive on defense and generate a lot of steals en route to a 16-10 lead at the halfway point of the first period. It doesn't help that we blow some gimme FTs early on. They're also hitting their 3s, so I call the team in and tell them to slow down the pace of the offense and pick up the intensity on defense. If Southern Utah wants an ugly game, they'll get it.

Our changes work well, so well that we go into the locker room up 34-31 at the half. They're still too successful from 3-point range, but that's a problem we've had all year long. No real standouts for us for the first half, as everybody's chipping in a little bit here and there.

Southern Utah opens the half doubling down on everybody inside and we're having problems against that, so that with 10:00 left, we're suddenly down by 4, 49-45. After getting everybody in the huddle, I tell them to shift more towards the outside shot, because they're not going to give us anything inside.

Back we storm for a 52-51 lead, flip-flopping and then comes a huge break at 4:12, up 54-53. Robert Forbes, one of the Thunderbirds who's been killing us all game long, fouls out. I'm sensing Chris Thurman's getting a little tired, so I sub in Alvan Walton, who immediately fires off a three-pointer, grabs a defensive rebound on the other end and hits a jump shot to make it 59-53 with 3:10 left on the clock.

With 2:06 left, it's 61-58 Catamounts. Jason McArdle, the other Southern Utah player who's been hurting us all evening, hit the 3 pointer on the possession before to make it a three point game. Ed Drexler turns the ball over again and I switch to my crunch-time lineup, based on my usual standards of health and playing quality.

PG Matt Satchell
SG Alvan Walton
SF Kenyan Hansen
PF D.J. Smith
C Tommy Lee

Missed shot by Southern Utah, Kenyan Hansen rebound. Alvan Walton draws a second foul on Jason McArdle and hits both free throws. 63-58 WCU, 1:43 to go.

Tommy Lee blocks the shot and grabs the rebound on defense and Matt Satchell lays it on! 65-58 Western Carolina with just under a minute to play!

Another great defensive play by Kenyan Hansen, stealing the ball and Alvan Walton picks up a third foul on Thunderbird scoring machine Jason McArdle. This time, Walton only hits 1 of 2, but it's 66-58 Catamounts and with just 49 seconds left, it appears we've locked up a winning non-conference record.

And we have. A 3 point shot by Southern Utah makes it a 66-61 final. Our first road win of the year. We hit 58.1% of our shots to do it and there's no question who the hero in this one is. Senior Alvan Walton,
who in spite of his disappointment at losing his starting spot, comes through with 14 points in the clutch. 4/6 on FGs, including that momentum changing 3 pointer and 5 of 6 free throws down the stretch.

Southern Utah junior Jason McArdle tied his season high with 17 points against us, while 6th man sophomore Robert Forbes scored 12. Funny, I thought it was more than that. Kid's been on a tear lately, though. 11 points against CSU-Fullerton, a season high 17 against Hartford and now 12 against us.

Let's take a look at the conference standings, with RPI, heading into the Southern season. There's probably still some schools that have non-conf games on their schedule, but we're done at least.

North

Appalachian State	9-2 (66)
Elon			7-6 (170)
Western Carolina	7-6 (176)
UT-Chattanooga		6-6 (88)
UNC-Greensboro		6-7 (151)


South

Furman			7-5 (65)
Davidson		6-5 (109)
Georgia Southern	6-5 (192)
Wofford			5-7 (309)
Charleston		5-8 (235)
The Citadel		3-8 (322)

Remember, we were picked for 4th in the conference in the preseason mags, behind UT-Chattanooga, Davidson and Georgia Southern, so we're about in line with that right now I think.

Davidson, Furman, Georgia Southern, us and UNC-Greensboro really fell off track after fast starts. The Mountaineers are for real in my opinion. They knocked off the Arizona State Sun Devils 90-84 in OT in Tempe. Applachian State also has yet to lose at home and look like the class of the conference.

The Wildcats have lost 5 of their last 6 and granted, it was against a brutal slate of teams and Davidson upset UConn 66-61 in Storrs, but I still don't see them as that good a team. They play to the level of their opponents too much and nearly lost to such heavyweights as Richmond and Idaho State.

Elon's got an interesting out of conference showing. They remind me a lot of us, only their highlight victory's a 68-60 home win over Minnesota. Sure made Mr.Jestor happy, who has the Golden Gophers #1 on his list of most hated colleges.

As for the Furman Paladins, they're nowhere near as good as their RPI suggests, I think. A fluke 57-56 road win at UMass is their best result so far and their RPI is padded by double-digit losses to power conference teams who don't suck.

Want to know why UNC-Greensboro is so high in their RPI? They upset the mighty Utes 82-72. The Spartans also knocked off UMass 66-45, but both of those wins were home victories and it's worth noting that the same Gophers team that lost to Elon kicked Greensboro's butt in Greensboro, 62-48.

The Moccasins loaded up on some good teams and beat Colorado State 72-55 at home for their signature win, but the RPI is really all about serving as a cupcake to #1 North Carolina and #24 Kentucky.

Everyone else is slated as they should be, in my opinion.

The freshman to watch this year is Furman's Louis Taylor, who won the first three Southern Conference Freshman of the Week awards and is ranked 5th in the conference in scoring at 14.7 points a game, the highest-scoring freshman.

Charleston senior guard Keith Richardson currently leads the conference in scoring at 19 points a game, but Applachian State's senior guard, Otis Hampton, could catch him by the end of the year, as he's averaging 17.6 points, followed close behind by UT-Chattanooga senior forward Coray Hill at 17.3 points a game.

As for WCU conference leaders after the non-conference season, we've got Tommy Lee tied for 4th in rebounds at 6.2 boards a game, tied for 7th in blocks with Kenyan Hansen and a glut of others at 0.8 rejections a game and tied for 3rd in steals at 1.3 swipes a game.

Brant Medic could probably be among the league leaders in scoring, but because of foul troubles, he only averages 22.6 minutes a game. In fact, we use our starters less than any other team in the conference, with our high minutes logger Brad Bryant at 24.8 minutes a game. The next-closest to us is Wofford, whose top MPG man averages 25.6.

But it's largely a function of my philosophy of sticking with the hottest players on any given night. Thus, when you shoot 53.4% from the floor and don't get into foul trouble, as is the case with Bryant, our MPG leader, you're going to see more time. Or, if you're valuable on all parts of the floor, like Tommy Lee, our #2 man, the same thing will happen.

I suspect we'll see a big jump in MPG next season when our super freshmen come in at any rate. Right now, there isn't that much difference in talent level to overly rely on the starting five.

For the final piece of information, here's the Top 25 as of right now.

1. Kansas Jayhawks		13-1
2. North Carolina Tarheels	11-2
3. Oklahoma Sooners		14-0
4. UCLA Bruins			 9-2
5. Arizona Wildcats		 9-0
6. Syracuse Orangemen		11-2
7. Florida Gators		 8-3
8. Duke Blue Devils		 9-3
9. Michigan State Spartans	10-2
10. Maryland Terrapins		12-2
11. Indiana Hoosiers		 8-4
12. Notre Dame Fighting Irish	 9-3
13. Boston College Eagles	11-3
14. Memphis Tigers		11-4
15. Louisville Cardinals	 9-2
16. Florida State Seminoles	10-3
17. Illinois Fighting Illini	10-3
18. Louisiana State Tigers	10-1
19. Pittsburgh Panthers		 9-2
20. Georgetown Hoyas		 9-3
21. Kentucky Wildcats		 8-3
22. Temple Owls			10-1
23. Texas Longhorns		 9-2
24. Bradley Braves		10-1
25. Rice Owls			12-3

Amazing. The same Rice team we beat 70-62 in my first real coached win has crept its way up into the Top 25, joining fellow surprise teams Temple and Bradley.

Oh, I can't resist one more bit of news.

The Walk of Shame - Winless Teams
Ball State Cardinals (0-12)

Yep, Ball State's the only winless team in the country right now, though there's a handful of 1-win teams.

(OOC Note To Self - Do Not Write Updates in Notepad)

[Izulde]

January 4th starts off the Southern Conference season and for my inaugural conference game, we host The Citadel. Bad news for the 4-9 Bulldogs as their second leading scorer, starting senior SG Matt McIntyre is out with a broken ankle. Prime opportunity for us to take advantage.

And we don't, as our defense goes to pot and we -again- keep getting nailed by foul trouble, losing Kenyan Hansen and Tommy Lee to fast fouls. Ed Drexler picks up his second not long after and it's no surprise we're down 19-14 when the clock hits 10 minutes.

Without anything resembling depth at C, I'm forced to put Tommy Lee in again and of course he gets his third foul fairly early. We just can't catch a break in the foul game at all.

Yet we manage to strike back to take the lead later in the half, 27-25 with 5:23 to go with the small lineup of PG Madic/SG Walton/SF Cleaves/PF Smith/C Robinson. From there we go on a run, with my changing up players as needed in the lineup, but sticking with a Madic/Walton backcourt. We increase our lead to double digits twice before posting a 9 point halftime lead, 44-35.

Brent Madic is picking the right time to have one of his best games, with 12 points at halftime. Alvan Walton is building his case for his starting job back, as he has 4 assists, 3 steals and a block in just 10 minutes of play.

We go on cruise control from then on out, up by 20 points with 10 minutes to go. It culminates an 85-62 beatdown and some records broken. Brent Madic becomes my first player to play 30+ minutes, finishing with 31 and rewarding us with 21 points. Good game by Nick Robinson off the bench with 8 points and 6 rebounds, but the best bench numbers came from Tony Collins, who was unbelievable in scoring 14 points in 15 minutes, 4/8 on trey attempts. It seems like it's always either him or Chris Thurman having a great night and tonight it was him.

I've resolved to stretch my hotter players a little bit more during games as long they're staying hot. In the ones before this, I wouldn't have kept Brent and Tony in for so long, but given them more of a rest.

A key early conference test up next as we travel to Davidson. The Wildcats beat Charleston 69-57 on the road in their Southern opener, so we know they're not going to be a pushover, even with their leading scorer, sophomore swingman B.J. Kraft, out over a month with a broken elbow.

Davidson's unstoppable making their first 5 shots in a row and hitting more than they miss after that. There's only so much you can do when a team's that hot and I count us fortunate to only be down 9 halfway through the first.

That margin of minus 9 stays at halftime, 39-30. We're definitely not out of it, but we're shooting just 37.5% as a team and that has to change if we want to get back into this thing.

But it's just one of those nights where everything you do is cursed. I have them slow down the offense to protect the ball and generate more high-percentage shots and we have 3 turnovers in our first four possessions of the half. We drop to .500 in conference play with an 85-63 defeat, hammered 37-23 on the boards and outshot 50.8% to 42.3%. Four of five Davidson starters in double-digit scoring sums up this game perfectly, especially when our only player to do so was Kenyan Hansen with 12 points.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Brendan Roe verbals to Georgetown, so it's a rough night and next day for us. But we're still above .500 overall, and there's two 0-2 teams right now in the conference (Charleston and The Citadel), so it's not all bad.

We should very easily hit the 10 wins the AD wants (8-7 overall right now) and should be able to avoid last place in the Southern as well. Elevating our prestige above its current listing (38) may be pushing it, though.

Three undefeated teams in conference play right now: 2-0 Furman and Davidson and a surprising 1-0 Wofford after upsetting UNC-Greensboro on the Spartans' home turf.

[Izulde]

A very winnable home game against Georgia Southern is next on the schedule and it's one I'd really like to take, given that I and Juanita considered the school after our first round of cuts.

We break out a nice 7-0 run to start the game, but the Eagles hang in there and it's 17-11 halfway through the first. Ed Drexler has been the man during this stretch, with 6 points and 5 rebounds to his credit already. Unfortunately, he picks up his second foul after that and joins Tommy Lee and Kenyan Hansen on the bench.

With that foul trouble, Georgia Southern continues creeping closer, but then Alvan Walton responds by making his first three shots off the bench to carry us. More fouls force us to go with a lineup of PG Walton/SG Thurman/SF Cleaves/PF Bryant/C Robinson over much of the last 5 minutes and change of the half.

And yet, as has happened before this season, a small lineup works, even when we have to put D.J. Smith at C for the last minute or so. We're up 45-32 at the half and Alvan Walton's on fire tonight. 4/6, including 2/3 from downtown for 10 points in 11 minutes.

Things just get worse for Georgia Southern from there, as two minutes after the second half starts, it's a 52-32 game. By the time 10 minutes left, we're still up by 15 and just coasting.

We win 79-59 and Jesse Hedde was just unconscious tonight, hitting 8 of 9 shots for 18 points off the bench in 19 minutes. Alvan Walton had 10 points as you know and sat the entire second half. Kenyan Hansen stayed out of foul trouble long enough to get 10 points and Brad Bryant scored 13 in a team season-high 34 minutes. Terrific all-around game by Ed Drexler with 7 points, 8 rebounds an assist and 2 blocks in 31 minutes as I stuck to my plan of stretching out my starters. Come crunch time, I'm going to have to rely them on a lot more heavily, so I want them to get used to it now.

On the road we go to play one of the better teams in the conference in the Furman Paladins. The ones led by superstud freshman Louis Taylor with a team-high 14.6 points.

The plan's pretty simple. Double-team Taylor and dare the rest of the Paladins to beat us.

It's a plan that works insofar as keeping the score low, but we can't hit anything and it's looking a lot like our first game until I tell the boys to work it inside and try for the high percentage shots. Barring that, draw the foul.

We cut a 10 point deficit in half by the end of the first quarter this way, but sloppy play and a reverting to shooting outside has us right back down in double-digits a minute and a half later.

Bogus foul calls down the stretch and poor shooting have us down 46-29 at the half. We've dared them to beat us without Louis Taylor and Kiwani Smith has stepped up with 18 first half points. Needless to say, we're doubling on him now. Frankly, we're lucky to be down only 17. We should be in the hole by 30 the way we're playing.

It's 55-42 with 10 minutes left in the game and as the change from halftime indicates, both teams are just having a really ugly time of it right now. Still, we press on, getting to within 8 until the refs start calling every damn fool foul possible on us and with 8 minutes left, Tommy Lee and Jesse Hedde both have 4 fouls and and Brent Madic and Kenyan Hansen have 3.

6:14 left to go and Tommy Lee fouls out with us at our closest margin in a long time, 6 points.

We get within 5 points several times in the rest of the game, but can draw no closer than that. Furman hits all their free throws when we're force go to an an intentional foul situation and we lose 74-67. Brent Madic with 12 points, Alvan Walton with 11 and Matt Satchell and Jesse Hedde racking up 10 points a piece. I think Hedde's earned himself another shot at starting. Kimani Smith takes home Player of the Game with 21 points and Louis Taylor needed a lot of shots (33.3% shooting) to get his 13.

Although we lost, I'm proud of the way we came back in the second half on the road against a comparatively good team. It gives me home we can get some in-conference away wins yet.

It's good to return home, but the matchup's not any easier as we face off against Applachian State, one of 3 Southern Conference teams with 10 victories already this year. Senior SG Otis Hampton is the be-all end-all for the Mountaineers, averaging 17 points a game. We'll employ the same shutdown strategy we did against Furman and Taylor.

Huge break when Otis Hampton picks up 2 quick fouls, but we're not really able to capitalize, struggling with shooting again and barely eke out a 16-14 lead after the first fourth.

It's that kind of a game when your best-scoring big man blows a wide-open dunk and the opposition's star hits a 3 pointer in the face of a doubleteam. Given that, losing our lead and having a 34-30 halftime deficit isn't terrible. But we can play better than this and we've simply got to in order to win.

It's a double-digit deficit and then some as we wind down to the last quarter of play. Otis Hampton keeps making the double-team look silly and I'm slowly coming terms with the fact that the AD's wishes to avoid the conference cellar are more realistic than the media's starry-eyed 4th place finish just based on my reputation.

We simply don't have the talent or consistency to be a good team, even at this level of play.

It's a 67-51 final and Applachian State, who surprised me by starting off 1-2 in conference play, showed why I think they're legit with this hard-nosed defensive battle. Otis Hampton finished with 19 points, including 4/4 from 3 point range. Sure glad he's a senior. Nobody worth mentioning for us. We were bad all night long, especially in the second half.

Southern Conference Standings

North

Elon			3-2	10-8
Applachian State	2-2	11-6
UNC-Greensboro		2-2	 8-9
Western Carolina	2-3	 9-9
UT-Chattanooga		1-3	 7-10

South

Davidson		3-2	11-7
Charleston		3-2	 8-10
Furman			3-2	10-8
The Citadel		2-2	 6-11
Wofford			2-2	 8-9
Georgia Southern	2-3	 9-9

5 games in and nobody's broken away from the pack yet. Going to be interesting to see who finally does come away from it. My money's still on the Mountaineers.

[Izulde]

In one way, every conference game is a big one. But on another level, some games mean more than others based on the situation. Thus, with UT-Chattanooga lurking just below us in the division, our road trip to Chattanooga becomes all the more important in terms of putting some more distance between us. A win would also give us our 10th victory of the year, restore us to .500 in conference play and avoid falling under .500 overall for the first time this season since my debut game.

As has happened just about every road game we've played this year, we have trouble getting our shots to fall, but grinding defense keeps the margin slim at 17-13 midway through the first.

Tough getting anything going when you shoot 40%, so it's no surprise we go in at the half down 32-22. Despite our efforts to contain star Moccasion senior forward Coray Hill, he's busted our double-teams for his season average 15 points in the first 20 minutes.

43-35 after another 10 minutes. We've gotten as close as 7, but just can't put it together. Our team's terrible on defense and we keep shooting ourselves in the foot with bad shot-taking. It would really help if we had a player we could look to take over games, but that's just something we don't have and in a conference where it seems like every other team has at least one star, that's tough, that's real tough.

And then, suddenly, we make a late run, rushing to within 53-51 with 1:03 left on the clock.

28 seconds left, it's 55-53 and Brent Madic is fouled. Exhausted, he hits both free throws to make it a tied game at 55-all. The Moccasins convert on the other end to make it 57-55 with 11 seconds left. I call a timeout and tell them to play for the last shot.

Alvan Walton goes up for the last second jumper when he gets open... and misses it. Heartbreaking 57-55 loss.

Brent Madic really stepped it up in the second half and finished with 20 points. He's shown flashes of taking over, but hasn't demonstrated it on a consistent basis. Alvan Walton may have missed a lot of shots, including that last one, but he still had 10 points, 4 assists, 5 rebounds, 2 steals and a block and I think he's earned the right to get a starting job back.

Home sweet home against Charleston as we look to snap our three game losing streak, with Alvan Walton replacing Brad Bryant in the starting lineup.

Our defense continues to implode and we're down 24-19 midway through. I'm getting damned frustrated and I don't know any easy way to fix it. I tell them to hustle more on that end of the floor, but nobody's listening.

And then it occurs to me to try something unorthodox, namely Matt Satchell at PG and Brent Madic at SG. It works so well that we fight our way back to a 38-38 tie at halftime despite Charleston's shooting an insane 57.7% from the floor. Although Brad Bryant has 10 bench off the points, it's Madic flourishing in the SG spot that really sets us up for success down the first half stretch.

We're clinging to a slender 55-53 lead halfway through but then Brent Madic scores on two straight possessions as part of a run and just like that we're up 63-53 at the Cougars are struggling. Putting Madic in at SG may be the move that turns our season around.

With 1:29 left on the clock and a 72-63 lead, I take out Brent Madic to a standing ovation and cheers from the crowd. 25 points, a season team high from our sophomore, singlehandedly carrying us to a 76-63 victory and back to .500 at 10-10 on the year. Besides the scoring, he had 5 assists, 4 steals, 2 rebounds and a block. Lost in the shuffle are Brad Bryant and Tommy Lee with 14 and 12 points a piece, but it was an amazing game.

That happy news is marred by the bad news that Rob Gaines, who we were counting on as our star PG recruit, failed his SAT exam. Fortunately, all 3 of our LOI guys passed.

Brent Madic won Southern Conference Player of the Week for his two 20 point games! It's a great feather in the cap for him and our program.

By the way, here's the end of January standings.

Southern Conference

North

Appalachian State	5-2	14-6
Elon			4-4	11-10
UNC-Greensboro		3-4	 9-11
Western Carolina	3-4	10-10
UT-Chattanooga		2-5	 8-12

South

Davidson		4-3	12-8
Charleston		4-3	 9-11
Wofford			4-3	10-10
Furman			4-4	11-10
Georgia Southern	4-4	11-10
The Citadel		3-4	 7-13

Still wide open, as you can see, although Applachian State and UT-Chattanooga are starting to separate themselves out as the top and bottom. Lot of parity in the Southern this year.

Maybe that gives us hope now that we're going with the following lineup:

PG Matt Satchell (SO)
SG Brent Madic (SO)
SF Brad Bryant (SR)
PF Ed Drexler (SO)
C Tommy Lee (SR)

I'm trying to target a couple swingmen with our now unfilled two scholarships, but even if we can't get somebody, with the core of sophomores we have, plus the 3 guys we have cinched coming in, the future looks really, really bright for the Catamounts.

[Izulde]

First day of February we take on Elon on the road. The Phoenix aren't going to be easy, because they've got a well-balanced offense.

It'll be nice once we can actually get some guys in here who can shoot, because we're once more struggling to hit anything and are down 15-7 halfway through the first.

That 8 point deficit still stands, 28-21 at halftime. Elon's shooting 50% to our 25%. The Phoenix are applying a lot of pressure on defense and while that's racked up a lot of fouls, that's also caused a ridiculous amount of missed shots. Brent Madic and Tommy Lee are a combined 0 for 9, which says it all right there.

No miracle in sight here as we're down 17 and still not hitting anything despite slowing things down pacewise. On top of it, upping the pressure on defense just nets us fouls.

And so we lose 64-44. 31% on the night won't win anyone a ballgame, much less on the road. Brent Madic scores 15, but he made just 5 of 15 field goals and while Tommy Lee pulled down 10 boards, he didn't hit a shot all night. D.J. Smith scores 10 off the bench though and will get a starting opportunity next game, along with Jason Cleaves, replacing Brad Bryant and Matt Satchell respectively.

Home sweet home against Wofford. Winnable, but not if we play like we did against Elon.

Fortunately, we're back in semi-decent form and create a 23-19 lead at the 10 minute mark, thanks to Brent Madic finding his shot again.

The Terriers refuse to go down without a fight, however and stay within striking distance, albeit we're the ones with the 45-38 lead going into the locker room. Brent Madic played the entire first half and has 15 points as we've gone with a much shallower bench than we normally use.

Tommy Lee goes on a scoring tear to match Wofford's hot start out of halftime and once the Terriers start to cool off, we expand to a double-digit lead just before the halfway point of the second half.

From there, we just run away with it, getting back to .500 on the season with a beautiful 83-63 victory. Brent Madic earns Player of the Game with a 15 point, 8 rebound, 3 assist, 3 steal performance, but Tommy Lee hauls in 16 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks and Ed Drexler just misses a double-double with 10 points and 9 rebounds. Kenyan Hansen will get his starting spot back after 16 points, 6 rebounds and 3 steals in 18 minutes. Madic played 39 minutes, a new team high.

Parity still rules the Southern, as every team is either 5-4 or 4-5, with the exception of 5-5 Furman and 3-6 UT-Chattanooga. Nobody can pull away this year for some reason.

[Izulde]

If we want a realistic shot to do well in the conference, we've got to win on the road, which we haven't yet in Southern play. Another opportunity comes to break the 0-fer as we head to Greensboro to tackle the Spartans.

Spartans star Damon Russell of the 14 points per game average hits two straight three pointers and we struggle yet again to hit shots in the early going. But double-teaming Russell and a gradual increase in conversions gives us a 21-14 lead with just under 8 minutes left in the first half.

Our lead expands into double-digits before UNC-Greensboro makes a heck of a run to get within 3 and it's back and forth from there, with Brad Bryant hitting a buzzer-beater trey to give us a much-needed 35-29 halftime lead. The Spartans have stayed alive in this one thanks to some hot 3 point shooting. Tommy Lee has to feel a little rubbery after playing the entire first half, picking up 6 points, 7 rebounds, a steal and block for his efforts.

UNC-Greensboro comes out white-hot, making their first several shots. We respond with just enough offense to let them get no closer than 3 and some clutch shooting and timely defense down the road sees us up 50-39 and well on our way to our first conference road win with 10 minutes left.

Our newly stiff defense holds and Brent Madic catches fire down the stretch, finishing with 22 points and 7 rebounds en route to our 68-54 win. Tommy Lee just misses a double-double with 11 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal and 2 blocks and Brad Bryant scores 14 on a flawless 5/5, 3/3 from 3 point range night.

On the road again, this time to The Citadel, who's been better in conference play than they have a right to be.

Ugly shooting by both teams and two very sloppy turnovers by Jason Cleaves that earn his butt a spot on the bench have the Bulldogs up 15-14 at the midpoint mark of the first.

Then the Citadel goes on a run, increasing their lead to 9 before I decide to take advantage of our sole team foul by amping up the defensive pressure. It's enough to close the game to 27-22 at the half, thanks to a last-second steal and dunk. Hard to believe we're still in this thing shooting 32.1% including 0 of 6 from 3 point range, but I'll take it.

We fight and claw our way to a tie and are down 43-42 at the halfway mark. The Bulldogs are being rough-housed by foul trouble and while we're making some of the free throws, we're not making all of them.

It's the Citadel going up by as much as 5 before we storm back to make it a to and fro, heartpounding battle that's going down to the wire. Brad Bryant nails a jumper and converts 1 of 2 free throws along with a couple key rebounds to put us up 55-53 with 1:23 left on the clock.

54 seconds. The Bulldogs have the basketball. Still 55-53. I put my best defensive unit on the floor: Walton/Madic/Bryant/Hansen/Lee and double-team Vincent Poster, the Citadel's best 3 point threat.

Hansen's whistled for the foul with 42 seconds left and the Bulldogs make and miss one. We grab the rebound, but then Hansen's the goat who turns it over with 31 seconds left!

Brad Bryant comes through, forcing a Ben Wallace who isn't Big Ben to turn it over. I switch to a lineup of Walton/Madic/Collins/Thurman/Bryant, putting all my best free throw shooters out on the floor for what's sure to be a foul with 25 seconds left.

20 seconds left and the foul comes. Dan Trotti fouls out in doing so and Alvan Walton steps up to the line.

Clunk.
Clunk.

We lose the battle for the rebound and my heart's sinking, but we come up with the defensive stop on the other end to preserve the 55-54 victory!!!!!!!!!

Credit this one to Brent Madic's 12 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, even if he struggled and shot just 30.8%. Brad Bryant played great off the bench with 11 points, 7 rebounds and a block, including 5 of 6 free throws.

Huge win on a lot of levels. We proved we can win a close one on the road, we reel off our second straight away win and have now won 3 games in a row and it puts us over .500 in conference play for the first time this season.

The day after Valentine's Day, we host Davidson and although the Wildcats are without their leading scorer, they have 3 players averaging double-digit figures and the two that will be going against us are senior PF Marques Phillips and junior C Brad Johnston. So they'll be hammering us inside all game long.

30 seconds go by and Tommy Lee's whistled for 2 fouls on the same possession. Terrific. As if we weren't in trouble enough against Davidson's interior attack.

Jesse Hedde gets 3 points in relief, then picks up 2 fouls on the same possession as well. What.the.hell is going on here? I ask the ref if he'd mind calling a fair game and he acts like he didn't hear me. Then I ask him how much those rich bastards at Davidson are paying him and he tells me to calm down or I'll get t-ed up.

Whatever. Not even five minutes gone by and we've already got 6 fouls on us. Ridiculous.

By the time we actually -get- to the 5 minute mark, we've got 8 fouls on us and we're down 13-5. Oh and we're turning the ball over like crazy because the refs are letting the Wildcats do whatever they want on defense.

It's 22-6 at the 10 minute mark, we have 10 fouls on us and I've already gotten a technical called on me.

I lose track of how many fouls we've been tagged with by halftime, but Davidson sinks a 3 pointer much to my already heightened irritation to make it 36-28 Wildcats at the break.

We're down 40-28 almost 4 minutes in when Tommy Lee gets whistled for his fourth foul. I read the referee the riot act, calling him a traitor to Catamount Country and accuse him of servicing the Davidson coaching staff in more ways than one.

Needless to say, I get tossed and my tirade ends up on Youtube, ESPN and Internet message boards everywhere, with certain words bleeped out.

Jamar Hess tries his best, but he gets us no closer than 5 before the 65-49 final. A game so ugly, both teams shot 35% or less from the floor, but Davidson had 32/44 free throws compared to just 12/15 for us. You can't tell me the refs weren't bribed.

The good news is, there's only two games left in the regular season and with a .500 conference record, we stand a good chance of avoiding last place, which should go to UT-Chattanooga.

We find out before our game at Georgia Southern that the Moccasions lost to the Mountaineers, which means Appalachian State all but clinches our division and UT-Chattanooga is guaranteed to finish last in the Southern Conference. 10+ wins? Check. Avoid last place in conference? Check. Improve school prestige? Jury's out, but I'm thinking that may be a miss.

The Eagles need this game if they want to keep pace with Davidson in the opposite division, but they sure don't play like it and we don't have any sense of urgency either. It's 1-0 WCU on a Brent Madic free throw until 17:07, when the first bucket's scored. Madic picks up his second foul during that possession by Georgia Southern and now we're in hot water, because our top scorer gets benched early. Now granted, he'd been having foul problems early on in the season, but since moving to SG, he'd appeared to correct that.

Down 17-8 at the 10 minute mark, as Jared Collins has just been tearing us apart inside and we can't even contain him with a double-team. Fortunately, he sits shortly thereafter, giving us an opportunity to try and make some kind of rally.

We actually manage to tie up at 28 before a few stupid fouls by Jesse Hedde gives Georgia Southern an 8 point lead, one we're able to cut to 36-32 at the half thanks to a heads-up last-second steal and lay-in by Matt Satchell. Key stat: Chris Thurman with 8 points in 8 minutes, thanks to 2 three point shots. I'll take being down by 4 with Brent Madic having played just 3 minutes in the first half and with Jared Collins posting a sick 19 points in 12 minutes.

Brent Madic finds his rhythm enough in the second half to bring us back to a 49-47 lead before picking up his third foul, but Alvan Walton keeps it going in his place, giving us a narrow 51-49 lead at the 10 minute mark.

But then foul trouble starts killing us and the Eagles pop a trey to steal the lead back. They don't look back as we just run out of steam, bowing out 71-61. Free throws again were a problem, 19/21 for the Eagles, 8/14 for us. And of course Jared Collins bent us over for 25 points, 4 rebounds and 3 blocks. Just not a great game for us offensively, though Brent Madic and Chris Thurman score 11 each.

Lot of Southern Conference teams playing on Bracket Breaker Sunday. We aren't one of them, having already finished off our nonconference schedule.

Last game of the regular season before the conference tournament is at home against Furman. Win and we can clinch a tie for second place in the North. Lose and we're likely sitting fourth. Of course, the Paladins won't be easy, what with Louis Taylor and Kimani Smith having beaten us last time.

Taylor and Smith combine for 5 points just like that, Taylor with a jump shot, Smith with a 3 pointer. Fortunately, the freshman picks up two fast fouls, so we can double up on Smith.

Even with that gift, we don't score for 5 minutes, and are down 7-0 for a long time before Ed Drexler hits a layup to make it 7-2. Things aren't any better by the time 10 minutes rolls around, as we're down 11-3.

It's one of those nights where all you can do is just laugh at how bad a game you're having, because if you don't laugh, you'll cry. 25-14 deficit at the half and lucky for that because we're shooting 23.8% from the floor, just 50% from the charity stripe and 0 of 6 from downtown.

9:25 left in the game and we've battled back to within 43-35 due mostly to Paladin fouls galore.

Grind, grind until we tie it up but then Louis Taylor and Kimani Smith combine for another crucial 5 points. Yet, even that we manage to overcome and it's 60-all when Brent Madic fouls Louis Taylor with 29 seconds left.

Taylor of course hits both free throws and Brent Madic's fairly decent look at a 3 point shot to win the game clangs off the rim. The kind of loss that makes you want to tear your hair out and I really hate playing this Furman team.

Despite the miss, Brent Madic played very well: 15 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and a block. 33% shooting was a little ugly, but he was 8/8 from the charity stripe.

So we finish 8th in the conference and I'm not happy that it looks like I'll have a sub-.500 overall record my first year of coaching.

And here's the real kicker.

Our first round Southern Conference opponent?

Furman.

Final Regular Season Southern Conference Standings

North

Applachian State	 7-7	17-11
UNC-Greensboro		 6-8	13-15
Elon			 6-8	14-14
Western Carolina	 6-8	13-14
UT-Chattanooga		 5-9	11-16

South

Georgia Southern	10-4	17-11
Davidson		 9-5	17-11
Wofford			 9-5	15-12
Charleston		 7-7	12-15
Furman			 6-8	13-15
The Citadel		 6-8	10-17

Southern Conference First Round Matchups
(11) The Citadel @ (6) Elon
(10) UT-Chattanooga @ (7) Charleston
(9) Furman @ (8) Western Carolina

How the Moccasins got the 10 seed when they finished with a worse conference record than the Bulldogs I don't know. Or, for example, why Charleston has the 7 seed when they finished better than Elon. Oh well, it all balances out as the teams are playing who they should. It's just the seedings that are off.

Not my problem though. I've got to figure out a way to beat the Kimani Smith and Louis Taylor show.

[Izulde]

Even more strangeness about the Southern conference tournament. UNC-Greensboro, who was 6-8 in conference play, earns a first round bye, whereas Charleston, who went 7-7, has to play in the first round. I don't understand it, but that's the way it is sometimes.

I'm not holding out much hope for our being able to shut down Kimani Smith and Louis Taylor. We couldn't beat them on our home court with Taylor in foul trouble, so it's going to take a miracle to win here. Then again, third time is charm and all that.

Or maybe there's hope after all. Kenyan Hansen scores our first 7 points and we take advantage of Louis Taylor's 2 quick fouls to build a slender 13-10 lead with 8:37 left in the first half. By the time Taylor comes back, we've increased that to a 24-13 advantage.

It's 34-21 Catamounts at the half and the gymnasium is rocking in celebration. We're shooting 51.9% and are doing a great job of distributing the ball. Letting Kimani Smith get 11 points by halftime rather than double-teaming him appears to have been the right move, because the Paladins are used to our putting two men on Smith or Taylor and the fact that we're not doing that this game is throwing them off.

44-26 with 10:00 to go and we're just cruising right along. Louis Taylor and another Paladin are on the bench with four fouls and we're unstoppable tonight.

And so it goes as we advance to the second round by a score of 66-47!. It feels terrific to beat our arch-nemesis in a season-ender for them. Brent Madic leads all scorers with 15 points, Tommy Lee has 9 points, 7 rebounds and a block and Nick Robinson comes from out of nowhere to score 10 points in 9 minutes on 4/4 shooting. Kimani Smith and Pat Stewart both score 11 points, but Smith's is on 4 for 13 shooting.

Southern Conference Tournament - Second Round
(8) Western Carolina @ (1) Georgia Southern
(5) Wofford @ (4) UNC-Greensboro (I still think a Spartans booster paid somebody off)
(11) The Citadel @ (3) Davidson
(7) Charleston @ (2) Appalachian State

A date with the Eagles and Jared Collins, who, as you'll recall, shredded us for 28 points last time and ate our double-team alive. This time we'll simply just let him go.

I really hope the Terriers knock off the cheating Spartans. The Citadel's capable of beating any team in the conference if they get hot, so Davidson can't relax. Charleston/Appalachian State should be a great game. The Cougars are mad about their snub and the Mountaineers didn't dominate like I thought they would in the SoCo.

[Wolfpack]

I think the source of the confusion is because the SoCon is broken into two divisions and my guess is the game is treating the bracketing like the SEC's bracketing, that is seeding is based on position within the divisions and not the conference as a whole. However, instead of indicating seed by division, the program instead uses 1-11. If you think about it a little, it does make some sense. For instance, the first round is

(11) The Citadel @ (6) Elon
(10) UT-Chattanooga @ (7) Charleston
(9) Furman @ (8) Western Carolina

More accurately, this is

(S6) The Citadel @ (N3) Elon
(N5) UT-Chattanooga @ (S4) Charleston
(S5) Furman @ (N4) Western Carolina

The SoCon also employs like the SEC a "crossover" pairing setup so that at least in the first round the teams are bracketed against a matching seed but from the opposite division, that is it's a 4-5 matchup, but the 4 and 5 come from opposing divisions. The crossover extends to the second round where the bye'd teams are intermixed on the same sides of the bracket, that is, if seeds held to form, 1S would play 2N in one semi-final and then 1N would play 2S in the second semi-final (though seeds would show up on screen as 1-4 and 2-3).

While it could just as well have been seeded strictly into two separate divisional brackets where a final involved winners of the two "division" tournaments, I guess the SoCon and the SEC do it this way to produce less common matchups from the regular season in the early rounds of the tournament while still preserving the top seed advantages of the division winners where they are essentially the top two seeds in the tournament. This doesn't happen in most of the other major conferences because they don't bother with a division split in their standings.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack

I think the source of the confusion is because the SoCon is broken into two divisions and my guess is the game is treating the bracketing like the SEC's bracketing, that is seeding is based on position within the divisions and not the conference as a whole. However, instead of indicating seed by division, the program instead uses 1-11. If you think about it a little, it does make some sense. For instance, the first round is

(11) The Citadel @ (6) Elon
(10) UT-Chattanooga @ (7) Charleston
(9) Furman @ (8) Western Carolina

More accurately, this is

(S6) The Citadel @ (N3) Elon
(N5) UT-Chattanooga @ (S4) Charleston
(S5) Furman @ (N4) Western Carolina

The SoCon also employs like the SEC a "crossover" pairing setup so that at least in the first round the teams are bracketed against a matching seed but from the opposite division, that is it's a 4-5 matchup, but the 4 and 5 come from opposing divisions. The crossover extends to the second round where the bye'd teams are intermixed on the same sides of the bracket, that is, if seeds held to form, 1S would play 2N in one semi-final and then 1N would play 2S in the second semi-final (though seeds would show up on screen as 1-4 and 2-3).

While it could just as well have been seeded strictly into two separate divisional brackets where a final involved winners of the two "division" tournaments, I guess the SoCon and the SEC do it this way to produce less common matchups from the regular season in the early rounds of the tournament while still preserving the top seed advantages of the division winners where they are essentially the top two seeds in the tournament. This doesn't happen in most of the other major conferences because they don't bother with a division split in their standings.

Thanks. That's the problem I always have with divisional conferences is figuring out exactly how seedings and final conference standings are determined.

[Izulde]

Upsetting the Eagles would be great on a lot of levels. We'd be guaranteed a .500 record on the year, advance to the SoCon semi-finals and beat a team that I considered in the beginning.

Missing our first four shots doesn't exactly inspire confidence, but then Brent Madic catches a little fire and Tommy Lee blocks Jared Collins 3 times in the first 9 minutes. It gives us a satisfying lead until Madic picks up his second foul.

We're still clinging to a 21-20 lead at the 10 minute mark and though we lose it shortly thereafter, a second foul on Jared Collins is huge, because it allows us to sit Tommy Lee for a breather and keeps Georgia's Southern's deadliest weapon off the court.

We take advantage of that golden opportunity and walk off the court with a 38-32 halftime lead. Brent Madic scores 8 points in his 9 minutes, but the big story so far is Tommy Lee's 5 blocks. That's really had an effect on Jared Collins, who's just 3/10 right now.

Just over 2 minutes go by and Jared Collins picks up his third foul!

Our superstar Brent Madic gets his third just shy of 6 minutes in, but we've built up a 47-34 lead, so it's not quite as worrying as it would be. We're still up by 9 with three quarters of the game burnt off and it's getting a little concerning now.

So I send Brent Madic back in at the 8 minute and change mark and for some bizzare reason, Georgia Southern decides to sit Jared Collins with just over 3 minutes to go and the Eagles down 71-56. I smell an upset coming, as Madic burst out with a scoring streak after coming back in to lead our expansion from 9 to 15.

And we pull off the stunner, beating top seed Georgia Southern on their home court, 81-65!!!. 55.2% from the floor, Brent Madic first and foremost with 19 points. Although Tommy Lee didn't add any more blocks, his first half job on Jared Collins definitely jarred the Eagles junior star a bit. 8 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists off the bench from Brad Bryant and Chris Thurman scores 5 in 6 minutes.

It's easily our most complete and important win of the year and as a reward we get a home game against Wofford, who beat UNC-Greensboro 93-80. In the other semi-final, The Citadel shocked Davidson 79-71 and go on the road against Appalachian State, who crushed Charleston 81-55 and are finally looking like the NCAA bid out of our conference I tabbed them to be.

[Izulde]

To underestimate the Terriers would be foolish, as they were 9-5 in SoCon play and are 16-12 overall. Their perimeter game is ferocious, with their starting PG, SG and SF all averaging in double-digit figures for scoring. Should be quite a matchup between us and Wofford.

We make our first four shots, but Wofford's just killing us on the boards and so we're down 19-18 midway through the first half. Tommy Lee picking up 2 fouls early doesn't help, either.

Add to that list stupid and numerous fouls, the Terriers hot from the charity stripe and our complete inability to play defense or hit shots and you have the recipe for a 45-30 halftime deficit, a salty 3 pointer smacked down at the buzzer to turn 12 into 15.

22 rebounds to 13. 19/21 from the line as opposed to 10/16. Yep, we're getting our butts handed to us. Three Terriers in double-digit figures already and none of them their hallowed three.

Down by 12 halfway through after we get Tony Collins to give us 12 points off the bench. But then he starts generating turnovers so I put in Chris Thurman because Brent Madic just doesn't have it tonight in any way, shape or form.

But we just can't get any closer than 7 tonight once Wofford's got the lead in hand, even with two Terriers fouling out. My all 3 point men lineup doesn't hit a single trey as we try to come back down the stretch and Wofford wins it 76-65. 31/37 from the charity stripe, which is just ridiculous. Props to Tony Collins giving us 12 points in 8 minutes and Kenyan Hansen did well with 10 points, but we just struggled everywhere tonight. Player of the Game is Terrier 6th man sophomore Clyde Hardy scored 20 points most of it on 14/14 FT shooting.

Wofford goes on to play Applachian State for the lone SoCon bid, but the Mountaineers prove that talent wins NCAA tournament bids by thumping the Terriers 79-66.

Still, a 15-15 season is nothing to be ashamed of for my first year and it got the school and community excited about their basketball team for the first time in forever.

I don't know if WCU's prestige or my reputation will go up, though. Here's how the numbers looked at the start of the season.

Relevant Numbers
Reputation: 40
WCU Prestige: 38
SoCon Prestige: 37

NCAA Tournament

Top Seeds
Kansas (30-2)
Duke (24-6)
Boston College (26-6)
Florida (26-3)

Southern Conference Representatives
(13) Applachian State (20-11)

Mr. Jestor's beloved Razorbacks are a #7 seed in the NIT after a mediocre 15-14 (7-9) season. They're pretty lucky to have even made that.

Juanita and I settle in to watch the NCAA Tournament with our son, though we've made plans for Mr. Jestor to watch the Final Four with us if he's not busy in Sacramento.

The Hogs upset 2 seed Xavier 70-54 in the NIT, advancing to the second round.

NCAA First Round Upsets - Excluding 9 over 8 Seeds
(13) Applachian State 58 (4) Georgetown 54
(10) Marquette 69 (7) Northern Arizona 64
(11) Virginia 75 (6) Nevada 66
(10) Houston 68 (7) Pittsburgh 52
(11) Boise State 87 (6) New Mexico State 62
(11) Utah 76 (6) Memphis 57

I was extremely proud of the Mountaineers' upset of the Hoyas. Although they went on to lose 88-79 to 5th seed Bradley in the second round, it's those kinds of victories that'll help put our conference on the map.

Mr. Jestor's Hogs lost 81-70 to Wichita State in the second round of the NIT, but it didn't really bother him. According to him, the NIT championship only really means something to small schools.

NCAA Tournament Second Round Upsets - Excl. 5 over 4
None

The highest seed left in the whole tournament in the Sweet 16 is 5 seed Oregon. That's one hell of a picking by the selection committee, who has to be quite proud of themselves right now.

Sweet 16 Upsets
(5) Oregon 86 (1) Boston College 82
(3) Indiana 77 (2) North Carolina 64

Impressive job by the committee still except for the Ducks ambushing BC. Although a 3 seed over a 2 seed isn't that much an upset, I'm proud of my alma mater for making it to the Elite 8 and I'll be pulling for them to win it all.

Elite 8 Scores
(1) Kansas 71 (2) UCLA 61
(2) Florida State 75 (1) Duke 65
(5) Oregon 66 (3) Indiana 60
(1) Florida 80 (2) Arizona 75

So close, but my Hoosiers weren't able to pull off the win against the closest thing we have to a Cinderella this year. The whole state of Florida is hoping for a Gators/Seminoles national championship game, but the way I see it, it should be Jayhawks/Gators.

And the state of Florida goes into an ecstacy of celebration as the 2 seed Seminoles stun the Jayhawks 77-73 and the Gators end the Ducks' magical run 85-73!. I don't think we've -ever- seen an All-Florida National Title Game before and yet here it is.

The national title game itself proves quite anti-climatic as the Gators shut down the Seminoles, beating them handily 71-54 for the 2029 National Championship. I give props to Florida State for even getting that far though, just as Oregon deserves credit for making it to the Final Four.

Awards

Norton Award Winner
SG Joey Larson (SO) - Pittsburgh - 28.7 PPG 6.4 RPG 1.9 APG 1.8 SPG 1.2 BPG
National Player of the Year
SG Joey Larson (SO) - Pittsburgh - 28.7 PPG 6.4 RPG 1.9 APG 1.8 SPG 1.2 BPG
NCAA Tournament MVP
SG Eric Jarmond (SO) - Florida
National Freshman of the Year
SG Chris Dixon - UCLA - 24.0 PPG 7.7 RPG 2.0 APG 2.7 SPG 1.0 BPG
National Defensive Player of the Year
SF Kerry Voshkul (JR) - North Carolina - 10.8 PPG 5.8 RPG 2.3 APG 2.7 SPG 1.0 BPG
Coach of the Year
Matt Duncan - Kansas Jayhawks

All-American 1st Team
SG Joey Larson (SO) - Pittsburgh
SG Chris Dixon (FR) - UCLA
SG Marco Baron (JR) - Florida State
PG George Wormley (SR) - Michigan State
SG Myron Hays (SO) - Arizona

All-American 2nd Team
C Matt Gray (JR) - Arkansas
SG Terrell Carr (FR) - Duke
PF Adrian Marsh (SR) - UCLA
PG Harris Sawyer (SO) - Notre Dame
PG Lionel Jordan (SR) - Florida State

Great teams from UCLA and Florida State this year, though I wonder how the Bruins and Seminoles are going to look as Marsh and Jordan graduate respectively and who knows which of these guys is going to declare for the draft.

Southern Conference Awards

Player of the Year
SG Keith Richardson (SR) - Charleston - 17.7 PPG 5.1 RPG 2.6 APG 1.1 SPG 0.9 BPG
Freshman of the Year
SG Louis Taylor - Furman - 14.6 PPG 3.3 RPG 1.7 APG 0.8 SPG 0.3 BPG
Defensive Player of the Year
PF Marques Phillips (SR) - Davidson - 11.1 PPG 6.6 RPG 0.9 APG 0.9 SPG 0.5 BPG
Coach of the Year
John Diggs - Applachian State

All-Southern 1st Team
SG Keith Richardson (SR) - Charleston
SG Otis Hampton (SR) - Applachian State
PF Coray Hill (SR) - UT-Chattanooga
C Jared Collins (JR) - Georgia Southern
PF Marques Phillips (SR) - Davidson

All-Southern 2nd Team
PG Damon Russell (SO) - UNC-Greensboro
SG Ross Kincade (SR) - Elon
SG Louis Taylor (FR) - Furman
PF Teremun Henderson (FR) - The Citadel
C Al Hollis (JR) - Elon

Snubbed and shut out of the awards, though I can't say I'm wholly surprised. It'll be interesting next year seeing what kind of seasons Collins and Taylor have.

Goodbye Seniors

SG Alvan Walton
30 games/4 starts - 5.8 PPG 2.2 RPG 1.2 APG 0.5 SPG 0.4 BPG
-Shot just 31.3% his senior year and never really recovered from his benching. Still, he was a valuable reserve, one who could be counted on to occasionally turn it on and he was a force defensively.

PF Kenyan Hansen
30 games/28 starts - 7.1 PPG 4.1 RPG 1.0 APG 0.7 SPG 0.8 BPG
-The unsung hero of our starting lineup. Prone to foul trouble and not all that often a highlight maker, he nonetheless did a lot of things right and I'll be sad to see him go. 54.9% from the floor.

SF Brad Bryant
30 games/19 starts - 7.0 PPG 3.0 RPG 1.6 APG 0.5 SPG
-Originally he was one of our busiest starters, but as the season wore on, I realized he was much more effective as a reserve, so that's the role he came to occupy as Hansen's backup. Never complained about it and the perfect guy to have on the team.

SF D.J. Smith
27 games/1 start - 3.0 PPG 1.4 RPG 0.5 APG 0.2 SPG 0.1 BPG
-The senior who saw the least amount of time, his minutes kept right on dropping as the year progressed. In fact, he didn't even make an appearance in our first two SoCon tournament games and only foul trouble gave him minutes against Wofford. Still, he could be counted on to start a run sometimes, even if he was worthless on defense.

C Tommy Lee
30 games/28 starts - 6.4 PPG 5.9 RPG 1.3 APG 1.0 SPG 0.9 BPG
-I consider it something of a shame that he didn't get Defensive Player of the Year or even looked at for an All-Conference award. In many ways, he was our second most valuable player on the team behind Brent Madic, particularly since Jesse Hedde was such an inconsistent reserve, a backup who played worse instead of better as we went along. If it wasn't for the recruits I have coming in, I'd be real worried about the C spot next year.

Job Openings
The only opening is with Bowling Green and the Falcons are extremely interested in having me aboard. I'm sticking with WCU though, at least for the length of the original contract. I'm excited to see how the recruits we've got coming in look.

Oh and about our two remaining spots...

Catamounts Close Out Class Strong

Fresh off a .500 season and a trip to the SoCon semifinals, Mateen Yeaton cemented by the best recruiting class in WCU history by signing SG Andres Leatherman, a 4 star recruit from Exeter High in Exeter, NH and a Top 100 Atlantic East player and SF Damon Chatman from Brookfield Academy in Brookfield, WI, a stunning steal of a player whose stock has been rising all year long and currently is rated in the Top 200 in the entire US by WSSN.

Leatherman is said to be the complete package, with good scoring and passing ability, good defense and NBA-level athleticism. Chatham is purported to have scoring talent and great passing for a forward along with very good rebounding skills, something Western Carolina notably lacked this season.

Both Leatherman and Chatham also graduate high school with a B average, making them the most accomplished of WCU's recruits academically.

For budgetary reasons, I keep my staff together, even though I'd really like to fire them. Recruiting has really killed our coffers, mostly due to the effort we put in Chatham. Just between you and me, Mr. Jestor had a lot to do with our stealing a kid from Wisconsin, especially since Damon wanted to stay in the Midwest.

Speaking of a budget, I ask for an increase, requesting it so I can get a better staff next year, but the board says no. Oh well, didn't hurt to try.

[Autumn]

That's crazy, Exeter High School is where I went to school.

[Autumn]

And I should say, crazy because it's not a big school and certainly not one you would expect to get any recruits from.

[Izulde]

That's awesome. Any cool flavor info you can give about your HS alma mater outside of that? Like mascot, colors, school history in basketball, etc?

That's one of the things I love most about these college text-sims is the ability to have a player from your HS alma mater that wouldn't be there normally.

[Izulde]

The Fearsome Five - Final WSSN National Rankings
SF Ryan Jones - #97 (NC)
SF Damon Chatman - #196 (WI)
C Bryan Layton - #246 (NC)
C Jerry Woodley - #470 (NC)
SG Andre Leatherman - #995 (NH)

Even before he steps on the cout here at WCU, Ryan Jones is already the second best player on the team behind Brent Madic and has potential to be a terrific defender and a real student of the game, especially since he's got dynamite work ethic. I'm going to love watching this kid play. An all but guaranteed starter.

Damon Chatham doesn't quite have Jones's work ethic, but it's still above average and like Jones, he could really develop a nice undersanding of basketball. He's got the ability to shoot from anywhere, making him a prime candidate to start at the 3.

Bryan Layton's a bit of a lazy butt, but he comes in as the most polished of all our big men. I can't say whether he'd have started over Tommy Lee last year, but he's all but cinced the starting C spot.

I feel like Jerry Woodley can eventually surpass Layton in all-around terms, but he's raw right now, so I'm probably going to redshirt him. I forgot to mention that Jerry's mother is a WCU alum and she was also a big part of the reason why we got him. She said she's really proud and excited that her son is going to her alma mater. I'm excited to have him here.

Andre Leatherman has jaw-dropping athleticism for this level. He and Ed Drexler are easily our most two athletic players. Leatherman could also become a good defender and already rates as our third best player on defense behind Madic and Jones and just ahead of Chatham. I'd love to start him, but he'll probably fit better in a 6th man role for now.

Three seniors this year, but Jesse Hedde and Jason Cleaves were walk-ons, so we only have 1 scholarship available.

No scholarships available for transfers, but there's some shocking players on the transfer list..

Notable Transfer Listed Players
SG Barron Tennell - SEC Player of the Year (Ole Miss)
C Bob Roy - SEC Defensive Player of the Year (Alabama)
SG Amon McMahon - Summit All-Conference 1st Team (North Dakota State)
PF Michael Underwood - Pac-10 All-Conference 1st Team (California)
SG Harold Peskine - NEC All-Conference 2nd Team (Robert Morris)
SF Cedrick Cunningham - Summit Freshman of the Year (South Dakota State)

Barron Tennell goes from Mississippi to Memphis, which is an odd move, until you consider that the Rebels were 17-16 (7-9) last season and the Tigers were 22-11 (9-5). Ole Miss made the NIT and Memphis made the Big Dance and are a more prestigious school. Michael Underwood's ambitions show when he goes from Cal to Duke. The Golden Bears were 14-14 last season and Duke won the ACC title and made it to the Elite 8. They're both sophomores this year, so they'll have two years of eligibility after sitting out.

Bob Roy goes out west to Arizona, foresaking his home-state school that went a pitiful 12-16 (6-10 last year) for the Elite 8 Wildcats.

Amon McMahon fulfills his dream of playing on a bigger stage by going to the Oklahom Sooners. He'll have exactly one season in Norman, so hopefully for him the team that made the Sweet 16 last year will be able to do the same or better in his final year of eligibility.

Harold Peskine and Cedric Cunningham don't get accepted anywhere and under the new NCAA rules adopted a few years back, once you file a transfer request, you can no longer play basketball for your original school. So it looks they've just shot their basketball careers in the foot.

In recruiting, I immediately put out an offer to Corry Miller from West Forsyth High in Clemmons, NC. Given that he's rated the #3 player in the country and #1 in the Atlantic East even by the Gold Scouts, our chances of landing him are slim, but this is the year to go all-out.

Miller politely tells me he's not interested at all and nothing will change his mind, so I just as politely tell him our offer is off the table and wish him the best of luck in his college search.

It's really tough to get kids to look at us, coming off a .500 season. Sure, it's still a draw having an NBA Hall of Famer head coach, but it's a lot more difficult with that in the way. Even with that handicap, by the end of July, we've identified our primary target. PF Jonathan Bellairs, who has what we need most, namely rebounding. He's also one of the few players who didn't shrug off the idea of coming to little Cullowhee, NC.

Towards the end of August, when the new Top 10 rankings are updated, we're 5th on Bellairs' list and quite worryingly, he's been showing less and less interest in us over the last few weeks.

C Corliss Hicks tempts us after our visit goes well, but he's barely pulling a 2.2 GPA and after I got burned last year on the player who shall not be named, I don't want to take the academic risk.

A week later, Jonathan Bellairs gives us his verbal. The papers aren't all that enthused about our picking him, because he's only in the 700s in the WSSN rankings when he agrees and even the Gold Scouts only have him as a Top 100 player in the Atlantic East. But he's still a 4 star prospect that addresses our biggest need. Oh, he's from La Salle Academy in Providence, RI.

Good thing we grabbed him too, because Corliss Hicks pulls a swerve in committing to Cincinnati. Corry Miller, by the way, was the recruiting upset of the season as he verbaled to Maryland over Duke, which had the Cameron Crazies screaming on talk radio for about a month straight. Hey, I'm just happy he agreed to visit the campus, so that when he makes the NBA someday, I can legitimately say I recruited him and he checked us out.

I decide, along with the staff, to cut the High Post completely out of the offense this year. We're still going heavy on the Motion, but with an increased emphasis on the Triangle. By only having two offensive sets to learn, hopefully the Fearsome Five catch on quickly.

Andre Leatherman gets involved in arguments during two straight weeks of practices, so I call him in, sit him down and tell him that while he may have been the man at a small school like Exeter High in New Hampshire, he'll have to earn respect from his teammates here and to stop causing problems. He said he'd work on it and thanked me for calling it to his attention.

By the time we get to November, we've got our starting lineup, at least for the beginning of the year.

PG Matt Satchell (JR)
SG Brent Madic (JR)
SF Ryan Jones (FR)
PF Damon Chatman (FR)
C Bryan Layton (FR)

I decide not to redshirt Jerry Woodley, simply because I don't want to have to put Jesse Hedde on the court at all if I can help it. James McDermott was pushing hard for a lineup of Madic/[b]Andre Leatherman/Jones/Chatham/Layton and I'll admit, I thought about it, but Satchell really busted his tail this summer and has earned the chance to be a starter.

Georgia Southern, with four seniors and a freshman in the lineup, are favored to win the Southern Conference, with the Louis Taylor/Kimani Smith-led Furman Paladins in second. That's certainly fair, but I'm still surprised to see us picked 6th. Then again, they were using their own projected starting lineup and not what ours turned out to be.

Preseason Top 25
1. Duke
2. Kansas
3. Maryland
4. Arizona
5. North Carolina
6. Memphis
7. UCLA
8. Indiana
9. Florida
10. Louisville
11. Illinos
12. Connecticut
13. Notre Dame
14. Seton Hall
15. Florida State
16. Kentucky
17. Michigan State
18. Georgetown
19. LSU
20. Oklahoma
21. Oregon
22. Syracuse
23. Texas
24. Utah
25. Georgia Tech

I've bolded the Final Four teams. Interesting how little respect the Seminoles and Ducks are getting and that the defending champion Gators don't even rate a Top 5 placement. Happy to see my Hoosiers ranked 8th, though. Pittsburgh's not on here because Joey Larson turned pro, leaving a gaping hole the Panthers can't fill.

Our season opener is also our home opener against Fordham.

Oh, I forgot to mention. I'm expected to finish above .500 this year because we've got a better team. I'm also supposed to avoid last place in the Southern Conference naturally, as well as improve the school's prestige. I failed in that last goal last season, as we dropped from 38 to 37.

8 fouls in 6 minutes and Matt Satchell and Ryan Jones sitting on the bench. Not a good start to the season. 30 seconds later, Bryan Layton gets his second and we've got 3 benched starters. At home.

I get whistled for a technical and 20 seconds later, Damon Chatman gets hit with -his- second foul. Throw in Jason Cleaves's complete inability to run the offense and Brent Madic's not making a shot and it's not so surprise we're down 21-13 at the 10:00 mark. To be honest, it could be a lot worse than that the way things are going.

And get worse it does, as we go into the locker room down 40-23. We're shooting an unforgivable 25.8% from the floor, including 0/7 from downtown.

We're getting murdered on the boards and while our shooting's improving, it's still not good enough to close the gap much. 50-34 with 10:00 to go and I think this one's a lost cause.

A rally comes too little, too late, but at least the score's respectable as we lost 60-54. Bad shooting night for both teams: 34.5% for the Rams, 28.3% for us, though we did shoot 90.5% from the charity stripe, missing just 2 of 21 shots. Brent Madic was easily our best player on the night with 14 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block. Bryan Layton scored 10 points in his collegiate debut and Ryan Jones, while he didn't hit a shot, did pick up 3 steals. Jerry Woodley showed great boarding skills with 8 rebounds, but it's not going to be enough to dislodge Layton until he develops a more accurate shot. Andre Leatherman was just flat-out terrible.

Tony Collins strained his abdominal, so he'll be out two weeks. Not a good hit to our depth, even though we're pretty well stocked at guard.

Jamar Hess and I meet after the game and decide that we should give the players more individual freedom on offense. Without any real senior leadership and us being so heavy on freshmen, we feel like we should dial it down until they're more into the system.

Fordham, by the way, was 12-17 last year, but 9-7 in a much tougher conference in the Atlantic 10, so I don't feel too horrible about losing to them.

It's the Ivy League coming to Cullowhee as those smart boys from up in Dartmouth visit us. The Big Green are 1-1 on the year

Bryan Layton scores the game's first 4 points and we start off strong, gunning to a 13-4 lead before Dartmouth calls its first timeout. Our freshmen, particularly Ryan Jones, look much more comfortable in the freer system.

That's not to say we're playing perfectly by any means, but we're still up 25-15 with just under 10 minutes in the first half and it's been our three freshmen starters who have carried the load.

The fabulous freshman showing continues when, after Dartmouth closes to within 6, Jerry Woodley comes off the bench and scores a fast 4 points to make it a double-digit game again.

42-29 at halftime, our advantage. We're shooting 55.2% from the floor and Ryan Jones and Bryan Layton have 9 and 8 points respectively already. Jerry Woodley has 6 points and 2 rebounds in just 5 minutes.

Then the second half comes.

Dartmouth gets on fire and we can't hit anything to save our lives. Suddenly a 42-29 stroll in the park is a 49-49 fight and we're not even halfway through the second half yet. It's 51-49 Dartmouth when that midpoint comes and I'm just aghast in disbelief.

But our defense claims down the entire rest of the game, allowing Dartmouth only 5 points in 10 minutes as we walk out 71-56 winners. An inconsitent shooting, but still good game for Brent Madic with 18 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and a block. Matt Satchell scored 10 with 5 assists and I noticed we really struggle whenever he's off the court. Ryan Jones had 11 points and 6 rebounds, as he really struggled to get his shot going anywhere in the second half. Not so with Bryan Layton who put up 14 points. Andre Leatherman's officially in the doghouse. 3 turnovers in 6 minutes against a mediocre Ivy League team (7-7 in Ivy play last season) is inexcusable.

I'm toying with the idea of starting Ed Drexler at PF. Damon Chatman hasn't shown much in his two starts, whereas Drexler would give us more rebounding with the first unit and Chatman could hopefully take it up a notch off the bench.

So far it's been a mixed bag on the Fearsome Five. Bryan Layton and Jerry Woodley have been excellent for us and Ryan Jones has potential, but Damon Chatham is still rough and Andre Leatherman doesn't look like he should be playing D-I college ball at all.

[Izulde]

I call Damon Chatman into my office and tell him that we're going to try starting Ed Drexler at PF to see if the team plays better, but that he'll be given every opportunity to earn his starting spot back and will be the first forward off the bench.

He's not happy about it and I don't blame him. I promised him playing time if he came to WCU and he's had a really tough adjustment so far, missing his home and his family a lot. He wanted to stay in the Midwest, but I talked him into coming to the East coast. I think there's a real possibility he transfers out at the end of the year and maybe never plays basketball again. He doesn't really gel with anybody else on the team and he just doesn't seem happy.

On the other end of the spectrum is Bryan Layton, who loves it here and has quickly bonded with his teammates, especially his fellow North Carolina freshman natives, Ryan Jones and Jerry Woodley. They call themselves the Three Amigos and have been hanging out together as much as they can ever since the day they came to sign their LOIs together last November.

Speaking of LOIs, James Bellairs signs his during the early signing period, officially ending our recruiting efforts for the year.

We go on the road to South Carolina Upstate next. The Spartans are 0-2 and this should be a good shot to pick up an early away win.

Despite Ed Drexler's presence, we're getting pounded on the glass and not shooting all that well, two key factors in our 20-11 deficit with just over 9 minutes left in the first half. Matt Satchell getting 2 quick fouls doesn't help either.

It gets even worse from there and we're down 37-20 at halftime. The Spartans are shooting 51.6% to our 25.9% and we've been out-rebounded 26-10.

I tell them to crash the boards on every single possession and while it helps us grab some more rebounds, we're still getting our tails handed to us there and still can't shoot worth a lick. So I completely abandon any idea of a system and tell them to freestyle it. That doesn't work so well either and we're down by 20 with 10 minutes to go.

64-46 final as we just plain got schooled. Our shooting improved with the greater freedom, going up to 34.6%, while SC Upstate dropped down to 38.8%, but that 49-24 rebounding advantage did us in. Brent Madic was our only noteworthy player with 13 points.

Rough game, but we just have to suck it up and get ready to host the Wichita State Shockers.

Going into an 8-0 hole is never a good way to start the game and things are made worse by Bryan Layton and Ryan Jones benched early with 2 fast fouls, but before he goes, Jones manages to score 8 points, a key part of why we're up 22-18 halfway through the first.

We sustain that lead and build in, up 40-30 at the half. The big difference is the charity stripe, where we're 14/16 compared to 3/5 for the the Shockers. Jerry Woodley really stepped up off the bench with 9 points and 4 rebounds after Bryan Layton sat early with 2 fouls. I'm also starting to trust Nick Robinson and Jesse Hedde a little more.

Wichita State chips away at our lead, but we're still hanging on 53-46 with three quarters of the game done. Matt Satchell has been reverting back to his turnover-proneness of last year, so we're having problems at the PG spot.

So out of desparation, I give Andre Leatherman a shot at PG and what do you know? He actually does a pretty good job of it. Buoyed by this new ball security, we pull away and win 78-64 to get back to .500. Lot of Catamounts in double-digit figures today: Brent Madic (12 points), Ryan Jones (14 points), Damon Chatman (12 points), and Jerry Woodley (13 points). Nick Robinson was awesome off the bench with 6 points, 9 rebounds, a steal and 3 blocks and I think I'm going to make some lineup changes:

PG Brent Madic (JR)
SG Ryan Jones (FR)
SF Damon Chatman (FR)
PF Nick Robinson (SR)
C Bryan Layton (FR)

We'll see how that works out.

4-0 Jacksonville State comes to town next and while they haven't beaten anyone monumental, they're undefeated and have 4 players averaging double-digit figures. That's going to be a tough challenge.

Two possession, two TOs by Brent Madic. Andre Leatherman does only slightly better so we bring in Matt Satchell who appears to be doing better now. Despite the turnover proneness and Nick Robinson and Ed Drexler each taking a spot on the bench early, we're still up 17-13 midway through the first and that's with Brent Madic taking an extended breather on the bench.

The Gamecocks make several runs at us but we scratch out a 35-29 halftime lead thanks to an incredible 62.5% shooting from the floor, most of it by Damon Chatman taking full advantage of the starting opportunity and hitting all 5 of his shots for 11 points. But we've also turned the ball over 15 times in this half alone, the sole reason Jacksonville State's even still in it.

Ball security improves somewhat in the second half and we're looking in great shape, up 55-40 with 10 minutes to go.

We're so on fire that I spend the last 6 minutes or so of the game just putting all the reserves out there for some playing time, except for the injured Tony Collins. Even with the scrubs in there, we still romp 77-54. 59.3% shooting will get you that kind of blowout win. Awesome game from Damon Chatman as he shoots 7/7 for 15 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals. Brent Madic scores 14 and Ryan Jones adds on 10 points, while Chris Thurman nailed 3/5 from downtown for 11 points in 13 minutes.

It's great to knock off an undefeated team, but there's a world of difference between beating 4-0 Jacksonville State in Cullowhee and traveling to Stanford to take on the #22 ranked 3-0 Cardinal. I'm not holding out much hope for this one.

We actually manage to go up 3-2 for a minute or two before Stanford's talent superiority kicks in and we're down 15-5 halfway through the first.

It's as close as 4 as one point, but is it what it is and the Cardinal go up 37-26 at the half. Considering how good this Stanford team is and that we're on the road, I don't look at that as too shabby at all. Matt Satchell's making a case for being moved back to the starting lineup and it's one I may seriously have to consider.

Except then, I ask myself as Stanford cruises to 55-31 at the midway point, who do I drop from the starting lineup? It's not a question with any easy answers as the clock winds down on our 72-45 loss, barely avoiding a 30 point defeat.

50.8% shooting to 32.7% shooting is all you need to know. Brent Madic scores 12, but he takes 15 shots to do it and as for the rest of the team, well they sucked.

Jamar Hess and I meet the next morning bright and early in my office to take a closer look at things.

What jumps out at us immediately is that Jerry Woodley is averaging 4 boards a game in 13.7 minutes, as opposed to Bryan Layton with 3.8 in 25.3 minutes. Extrapolated to 40 minutes, that's 11.7 to 6.1. Huge difference and that, combined with Woodley's more accurate shooting on roughly the same number of attempts is incentive to start him at C.

Concerning PG, Matt Satchell has the team's best net +/- ratio by far with 16.2, but that's mitigated by the fact that he's a turnover machine, as is Andre Leatherman. Another point in Jerry Woodley's favor: He's +4.8 net, second highest on the team compared to Bryan Layton
s -1.2. Brent Madic, we note, even with playing 31.2 minutes a game, has a positive net rating, strong incentive to keep him in the starting lineup in addition to his much lower amount of turnovers.

Looking at some fancy new defensive metrics, such as Drive Stop% and Points Allowed Per Shot Faced, it becomes obvious that Brent Madic is better defensively than Matt Satchell and that Ryan Jones is arguably our best defender. Other interesting metrics, such as Touches, Turnovers Per Touch and Assists Per Touch help us to decide to keep Nick Robinson as the starting PF for now.

Damon Chatman is the most accurate regular shooter on the team, so our lineup's decided based on all these metrics.

PG Brent Madic (JR)
SG Ryan Jones (FR)
SF Damon Chatman[/b] (FR)
PF Nick Robinson (SR)
C Jerry Woodley (FR)

So not that different other than the switchout at C.

Good test up next as we host the 3-3 Boston University Terriers.

My hopes of getting rebounds vanish as Boston eats us alive on the boards and though it's a 17-17 tie at the halfway point of the first, we're having to work for every single point we get.

It's a see-saw battle the rest of the half and we go in after 20 minutes on the wrong side of a 37-35 scoreline. The Terriers are 5/6 from the charity stripe whereas we haven't been up once. That and being outboarded 24-11 are the differencemakers so far in this one.

We have trouble at first getting things going, but after I put Bryan Layton in for Jerry Woodley and sic Ryan Jones on BU's best shooter, we start getting somewhere and lead 55-46 with just under 10 minutes to play.

But the Terriers aren't done yet and they keep running and gunning at us, drawing to within 3 and sending me into heart convulsions on the bench. Brent Madic misses 3 of 4 free throw shots and I pull him quickly. We need top free throw shooters out there and Madic, who normally has it, doesn't tonight.

Matt Satchell hits 3 of 4 from the line down the stretch and we pull away for a 73-62 win. Satchell scores 12 with 4 assists and no turnovers, Damon Chatman hits a team season-high of 18 points, Brent Madic scores 16 and Nick Robinson nabs 7 points and 8 rebounds.

Not an easy win, but one we'll take with a murderer's row set of three games coming up.

Since we're halfway through the non-conference schedule, it's a good time to see how the rest of the SoCon is doing.

Southern Conference Standings

North

Western Carolina		4-3
Elon				2-5
UNC-Greensboro			1-6
Appalachian State		1-7
UT-Chattanooga			0-6

South

Georgia Southern		6-1
Furman				4-3
Davidson			3-4
Charleston			3-5
The Citadel			2-5
Wofford				2-5

...Wow. UNC-Greensboro had a couple guys go on academic suspension and Furman and Davidson have a brutal non-conference schedule, but it's still astounding to see the SoCon North doing so poorly.

Great job by Georgia Southern so far and it'll be interesting to see if the Eagles can maintain that once conference play hits.

[Izulde]

And here starts the rough run. First, we host Utah, the school still living on the legacy of the Utah Sixers of 20 years ago. They went 20-11 last year and made the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament and while they appear a bit down this year, counting them an easy mark would be sheer stupidity.

For once we're winning the rebounding battle, which allows us to get an early and hold for most of the first 10 minutes of the game, but then the Utes start eating our reserves for dinner and we're quickly looking at a 21-18 deficit with 8:14 in the first.

It takes a lot of work and effort, but we fight our way to a 35-34 halftime lead. Rebounding is saving our butts because this Utes team presses more and nails 3 pointers more than any team I've faced in my one and some season of coaching. The press hasn't been effective, thankfully, but it's a new wrinkle that we're not used to facing. Jerry Woodley's been our best player in the first, scoring 8 points in 13 minutes.

The second half is brutal. We start losing our rebounding edge and they keep hitting 3s. It doesn't help when Ryan Jones, our best defender, picks up a quick third foul. But we're still hanging in there and even ahead, by a thread, when 10 minutes rolls around, 54-53.

Matt Satchell fouls out with 3:48 left and us holding on to a 71-63 lead before the free throws, largely because Bryan Layton has caught some serious fire off the bench.

The students celebrate in the stands as we win 82-72, hitting all our free throws as the clock winds down. Bryan Layton was the man of the night with 17 points in 17 minutes, nailing 7 of 8 shots. Damon Chatman is quickly developing into one of our top scorers, getting 14 tonight. Jerry Woodley and Brent Madic each hit 10 points and Nick Robinson does another fine all-around job with 9 points and 7 rebounds. I have to hand it to Andre Leatherman though. He's been working hard to earn more minutes and tonight he put in 8 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists with no turnovers in 22 minutes. He also played great defense and there may be hope for him yet.

Huge upset win over Utah, the kind that you love to have as a coach.

There's an argument to be made for making Bryan Layton the starting C again, but I'll keep rolling with Jerry Woodley until I have really compelling evidence to switch again.

We've yet to win away from home this year and going to visit the St. John's Red Storm, even with four freshmen in their starting lineup, doesn't exactly inspire confidence that we'll crack the zero here.

These refs are seriously hard, so hard that both teams are in automatic free throw situation midway through the first half. We've got a 26-23 lead at that point, due to Bryan Layton going a crazy 5/5 for 10 points before getting hit with his second foul.

A last-second 3 pointer by St. John's makes the halftime score 44-37, but what's shocking everybody watching the game is that it's WCU in the lead. Rebounding and connecting on 19/23 free throws are the reasons why, as both teams are shooting over 50%. Bryan Layton's 10 points still stand as our team high after 20 minutes.

3 minutes. That's all takes it to give back all 7 points and then some of our halftime lead. Not unexpected, but disappointing. We can't hit a shot and our defense has completely bit it. 60-57 Red Storm with 10 left on the clock and that's luck to even be that close.

And then heartbreak.

A back and forth battle, fighting and clawing our way to leads, then ties, then behinds, then ties again. Until a stupid, stupid foul gives them two free throws and they hit both. Brent Madic's last second 3 pointer clangs off the rim and we lose 80-78.

You can't let a team shoot 54% on you and expect to win most nights, not when you shoot 43.6% yourself, but we damned near did it. Man, this one hurts on so many levels. Brent Madic and Ryan Jones each score 15, Bryan Layton the team high with 16 points. Damon Chatman playing only 10 minutes because of foul trouble and not making a shot all night really hurt.

But I'll tell you what. I'm getting sick of Brent Madic. He's shooting 34.2% and it's killing us. I'm done with it. He can sit on the bench while Matt Satchell and Bryan Layton re-join the starting lineup.

I'm too angry after this loss to write any more. This is the kind of thing I felt losing all those Game 7s in the playoffs. There's 3 rings on my fingers which I love and appreciate, but the painful losses are still there along with the championships and my 2 NBA Finals MVP trophies.

And that pain's burning through me right now.

[Autumn]

I've been out of it, but catching up I'm glad to see Leatherman working his way out of the doghouse. Exeter High School's colors are blue and white, and the mascot is the Blue Hawks. We're in the same town as Exeter Academy, a very prestigious prep school, so we're used to being totally overlooked. Not an impressive basketball program there, really, though we're decent at small school football (the school was about 1,000 students when Iwas there).

Given the Academy though the town is pretty affluent and worldly for New Hampshire. I'm crossing my fingers that the hometown boy makes good.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by Autumn

I've been out of it, but catching up I'm glad to see Leatherman working his way out of the doghouse. Exeter High School's colors are blue and white, and the mascot is the Blue Hawks. We're in the same town as Exeter Academy, a very prestigious prep school, so we're used to being totally overlooked. Not an impressive basketball program there, really, though we're decent at small school football (the school was about 1,000 students when Iwas there).

Given the Academy though the town is pretty affluent and worldly for New Hampshire. I'm crossing my fingers that the hometown boy makes good.

Thanks for the info. And I could see Leatherman increasing his role, maybe even starting some day. As of late, he's been the first SG off the bench, because his defense is starting to show itself, even if he's still an inconsistent shooter.

[Izulde]

Even when they're 6-6 and are known much for their football for their basketball, going on the road against an SEC team is scary. Tennessee is going to be difficult, especially since we might still be deflated from our frustrating loss to St. John's.

Bryan Layton scores the game's first 5 points and we jump out to a 7-0 lead before the Volunteers just as quickly eliminate the gap. But UT's also got 7 fouls with just 3 and a half minutes of game time gone, so we have a real opportunity here.

Then our own foul trouble starts striking and it's 16-all midway through the first. Ryan Jones has been doing a great job defensively, but he can't hit a shot to save his life tonight. That hurts us, as does the fact that Jerry Woodley is off his game as well.

So it's no surprise when we're down 32-29 at the half. 35.3% from the floor and 0 for 4 from 3 point range. 11 turnovers on our part as well. In fact, the only reason we're still in this thing is our 17/17 from the line. Bryan Layton is carrying us on his back with 10 points and his second foul in the first half played a big part in our going into decline.

We suffer a complete meltdown, aided mightily by the refs suddenly calling every foul imaginable on us and ignoring everything the Volunteers too. I get so frustrated, I grab the clipboard from Jamar Hess's head and throw it at one of the refs, drawing an ejection and Youtube infamy.

72-56 final and nobody does better than Bryan Layton's 10 halftime points. So we go 1-2 on the murder stretch, even though we could've gone 2-1. Frustrating.

We're now .500 on the season, but have a very winnable home game upcoming against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Terrible ballhandling, cold shooting and a monster Islander PF named Deon Stacy have us staring on the wrong end of a 14-9 scoreline with 9:19 on the clock.

It's an ugly game all around, with both teams shooting in the 30s at half time (38.5% for TXAMCC, 30.8% for us), but advantage at the charity stripe ekes out a 25-23 Catamount lead. Hard to know where to go with all this, but we'll just keep trying.

We get hotter and we're up 41-25, 10:00 left in the game. Brent Madic just keeps getting moved lower and lower down the depth chart as he turns the ball over twice. While Andre Leatherman isn't any better a shooter than Madic, his superb athleticism and hard-nosed defense have him winning minutes.

In the end, it's a 61-40 final and I'm breathing a huge sigh of relief. Defense won this one. 17 turnovers for Corpus Christi compared to a season-low 9 for us. Matt Satchell leads the team with 16 points, Jerry Woodley flawless from the floor and bench with 13 points. 7 points and 7 rebounds from Bryan Layton.

Two games left in the non-conference schedule. At 6-5, at absolute worst we'll be 6-7 as opposed to last year's 7-6. But I'll take a repeat of last season's 7-6 record, given how tough our schedule was this year. 8-5, of course, would be wonderful.

Damon Chatman and Andre Leatherman haven't had problems yet, but right now I'm not sure how happy they are here at WCU. Chatman's still our biggest transfer risk in my opinion and a legitimate one, whereas Leatherman will come around in time, I think.

Then of course there's Bryan Layton, who's quickly become the Big Man On Campus and couldn't be happier.

[Izulde]

Tough game next, on the road against the Drexel Dragons.

The first quarter of play is a series of streaks, and it's all Drexel with just over 9 minutes left in the first, holding on to a comfortable 22-16 lead as we've gone completely cold.

It goes from bad to worse as every time we start to make a run, the Dragons come right back and our defense completely collapses in the last 5 minutes of the half. 45-35 in part because of some BS foul calls. But hey, let Drexel shoot 54.8%, including 4 of 6 from 3 point range!

Second half is even worse, between the continued crap the refs pull and our inability to play defense. Suffice it to say we lose 81-64, the Dragons shoot 54.7% and 70% from 3 point range (7/10). Brent Madic finally gets off his dead ass for 13 points on respectable shooting and Damon Chatman and Bryan Layton score 10 a piece but it doesn't matter.

We're shuffling the starting lineup, going back to a Satchell/Madic/Jones/Chatman/Layton five. Ryan Jones is definitely on the hot seat, though, because he hasn't shot for anything recently and is hitting just 32% on the year.

Our last nonconference game is also on the road, against the South Florida Bulls. We need a road win to get our confidence up, but against a Big East team? That's difficult.

Despite the usual ref bias and Bryan Layton's having to sit after a minute and a half, we're still up 20-11 midway through the first. Ryan Jones looks a lot more comfortable at SF, so it may have been my fault for playing him out of position.

But you know, then the Bulls start hitting 3 pointers, get even more generous foul calls and we have some sloppy turnovers that lead to fast break points and it's a whole new ballgame. Only Ryan Jones's buzzer-beating 3 pointer gives us the slim 42-40 halftime lead. Our defense is nonexistant for the second game in a row. 60.9% shooting for USF, 4 of 6 from 3 point range. Brent Madic and Ryan Jones have been keeping us afloat with 11 and 10 points respectively.

You try to play defense, you get smacked down with fouls. You back off so you don't get hit with fouls, your opponent makes every damned shot ever. So surprise, surprise, we go into deficit and only our own consistent shooting is keeping it close.

Back and forth it goes down the stretch but just when it looks we have a chance to get a shot to force OT, Brent Madic holds on to the ball too damned long and it's another god damned motherfucking whoreson goat's shit two-point loss, 89-87.

24/33 from FT line and 65.2% from the floor. FUCK THE ZEBRAS!!! FUCK THOSE FAT ASS FUCKWITS!!!!

Way to take all the fun out of Brent Madic and Ryan Jones combining for the school's first pair of 20+ point shooters. Madic, 20 points, 6 assists, 3 rebounds, 3 steals. Jones, 22 points. Damon Chatman sees his way to 10 points.

So there we go, 6-7 before conference play. And I'm supposed to finish over .500.

Southern Conference

North

Western Carolina	6-7  (152)
Elon			5-8  (230)
UNC-Greensboro		4-9  (254)
Appalachian State	2-11 (291)
UT-Chattanooga		2-11 (338)

South

The Citadel		7-6  (127)
Georgia Southern	7-6  (139)
Furman			6-7  (51)
Davidson		6-7  (192)
Charleston		6-7  (257)
Wofford			6-7  (258)

I suppose I should be happy that our record and our RPI suggests that we have a very good chance of improving on last year's 6-8 conference mark, but the St. John's and South Florida losses anger me so much I can barely see straight.

Our near-misses reflect worse on me as a coach than the number of technicals or ejections I've racked up. I'm an NBA Hall of Famer with 3 championship rings. I'm supposed to know what winning's about and be able to carry my team there.

So far it hasn't happened.

[DataKing]

Originally Posted by Izulde

24/33 from FT line and 65.2% from the floor. FUCK THE ZEBRAS!!! FUCK THOSE FAT ASS FUCKWITS!!!!

Don't hold back man, tell us how you really feel.

Enjoying the dynasty, BTW.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by DataKing

Don't hold back man, tell us how you really feel.

Enjoying the dynasty, BTW.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it

[BYU 14]

Hope this can be rescued from your hard drive. I downloaded the Demo and started a game with Weber State and to my surprise I have a Yeaton on my roster. Petrick Yeaton is a SF, who unfortunately is not quite as skilled as Mateen, oh well, at least I have a small piece of the Yeaton legacy.

[Izulde]

I hope so too.

No word from BB yet, which has me a little nervous.

Let us know how Petrick does.

[hoopsguy]

Darn, was hoping there was a "good news" update. I spent last week reading the entire "NY" dynasty and really enjoyed the ride.

[Izulde]

So, bad news.

My hard drive was bad.

Don't know if the stuff is salvageable or not, but I'll check with University Computing on Monday and see.

[Autumn]

Wow, that's a bummer. Hopefully they'll be able to retrieve things for you.

[Swaggs]

Bummer.

This one should be a little easier to recapture, if you choose to continue it. The Knicks/Nuggets/Kings dynasty is a hugge loss.

[Izulde]

Yeah I'm feeling that loss myself.

Didn't get a chance to find out today what's what, so I'm hoping I'll be able to tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've started another dynasty to keep myself from getting too depressed while I wait. Not sure if I'll maintain that one if my data can get back, but it'll be an interesting experiment.