Continuing Coverage: James Madison’s 2008 Coaching Search
Just before the end of the 2007-08 basketball season, James Madison basketball coach Dean Keener resigned and the Dukes hired Matt Brady a month later. The following are several stories I wrote about the coaching search during that period.
JMU’s Keener To Resign
HARRISONBURG – Dean Keener always said that James Madison’s administration wouldn’t have to fire him, that if he didn’t get the basketball program straightened out, he’d leave on his own.
On Friday, he stayed true to his word.
With two weeks still to go in another disappointing campaign, Keener announced that he had resigned as JMU’s basketball coach effective at the end of the season.
Keener said he made the decision during meetings with athletic director Jeff Bourne on Thursday and Friday. Bourne said the two agreed in principle at Thursday’s meeting and finalized the resignation Friday.
“Jeff and I spoke this morning,” said Keener , who has a career record of 29-83. “We decided that this is what we’d do is announce it now and step down at the end of the season.
“… We just weren’t quite able to accomplish what we wanted to. I think we were very, very close, and that suggests that it can be done.”
Bourne said Keener will be paid for the final year of his contract, worth $180,099 in base salary and about $230,000 total, although Keener did not make that a condition of his resignation. Rather than a lump-sum buyout, Bourne said, Keener will be paid through April 30, 2009 – the length of his contract.
“In essence,” Bourne said. “We honored our contract.”
Although it means the final three games of the season and the CAA tournament could be awkward, Bourne said he thinks the timing of the decision was good.
“I would have to agree with Coach Keener ,” Bourne said. “The timing is appropriate rather than waiting. It’s never easy to go through a season with speculation and the press wanting to know the status of the program and where you are. He was very up-front and honest and candid. He thought it was the best move for the program. That’s obviously the decision that we made.”
The move also helps the program, he said, because it allows the administration to begin searching for a replacement earlier.
“Certainly, being in the market with your opening will help you,” Bourne said. “At the end of every year, there are countless openings that occur, and having yours on the front end rather than the back end has some merit.”
Keener was in his fourth season with the Dukes after spending the previous four years as an assistant coach at Georgia Tech. When he took the JMU job in April, 2004, he inherited a program that was coming off of four straight losing seasons, but he never broke the slump. He went 6-22 in his first campaign, then 5-23 in 2005-06 and 7-23 in 2006-07.
This season, however, it appeared his squad finally had a chance to end the string. The Dukes began the year 7-1, and stood at 9-3 when they knocked off defending Colonial Athletic Association champion Virginia Commonwealth on a buzzer beater by forward Juwann James.
But since then, the Dukes have lost 12 of their 14 games, entering today’s 2 p.m. contest against Morehead State at the Convocation Center tied for last place in the CAA at 4-12 (11-15 overall).
“Six weeks ago, we’re 10-5 and it kind of started things off in fine fashion,” Keener said Friday in a telephone interview. “The difference between winning and losing is razor thin. You get a break here or there, or a call here or there. It’s just that fragile sometimes. … Shoot, we were just a couple of games from feeling totally different today than we do feel. I feel like our record doesn’t indicate what we accomplished and that’s frustrating.”
Perhaps the most frustrating part of Keener ‘s tenure, he said, was the unforeseeable circumstances that often left him with a depleted roster. His first two teams suffered from a bevy of injuries and a handful of suspensions. This year’s team also was hit by injuries, with junior forward Kyle Swanston missing seven games and sophomore point guard Pierre Curtis missing three more, both with knee ailments.
“I think what hurt us most were the challenges that came up unexpectedly along the way that I don’t know that we could have or should have prepared for,” he said. “But I feel like we ran a good program. We had the highest GPA in program history. We had to discipline some, but we had a lot of high-character kids.”
Keener said he informed his players, coaches and support staff of his decision to resign in the team’s locker room after practice Friday.
“I had the feeling that everybody in the locker room was shocked,” freshman guard Heiden Ratner said. “After practice, we went into the locker room with basically our James Madison men’s basketball family, everybody that’s been with us.
“… He just explained to us the situation, and the main thing he let us know was that he loved us all as players and as a team. He’s not giving up on us as a team. He’s going to fight with us to the end of this season, and for us to stay positive.”
After today’s game, the Dukes will travel to Drexel on Wednesday, then play their regular-season finale at home against Georgia State on March 1. After that comes the CAA tournament, beginning March 7 in Richmond.
“We want to show that he’s been there with us through all of these times,” Ratner said. “It’s not his fault that everything has to happen. He’s done his job very good, and we just came up short a couple of times.”
Said Keener : “I want to coach these guys through the end of the season. I’m as excited about tomorrow as any other game. That’s where I’m focused right now, and we’ll go forward from here.”
As for Keener ‘s successor, Bourne refused to discuss any possible candidates Friday, but spoke about his hiring criteria.
“I think the only comment that I’ll make is that we feel like we need to find a coach who has a proven track record,” Bourne said, “and an individual who we believe can be successful within the JMU environment.”
Keener: It’s On Them
Now that Dean Keener has resigned as James Madison’s basketball coach – and the team responded by pounding Morehead State 89-57 over the weekend – what happens next?
The first answer is that the Dukes still have two regular-season games to play, starting with Wednesday’s 7:30 p.m. date at Drexel (11-18 overall, 4-12 in the Colonial Athletic Association), meaning they have to get back to something resembling a routine.
Keener said Monday he doesn’t think that will be a problem. He also said he has no plans to mention his job situation to his team for the rest of the season.
“What reason is there to talk about it?” Keener said at his weekly press conference. “… It is what it is and you move on. … You never stay the same, you either get better or you get worse. You get bitter or you get better. For our guys, it’s just a matter of we’ve got to get to the next one. It is what it is.”
Keener , who closed practice Monday for the first time this season, said he might even be less concerned this week than usual about his team’s demeanor.
“I think it’s on them,” said Keener , whose club is 12-15, 4-12. “If they want to continue to play hard, try to prove something, they’ll do it. At some point, they’ve gotta learn a life lesson. They’ve got to pull something out of it, and I’m hopeful that they can do that.”
But the questions don’t end on the court. Among them:
* What happens to Keener ‘s assistants? JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said contracts for assistant coaches are renewed on a year-to-year basis. Translation: Mike Kelly, Louis Rowe, Jon Babul and director of operations Cary Cochran won’t be paid after their pacts expire in April. Unlike Keener , they receive no buyouts.
“You really feel for them probably as much as anybody,” Keener said Friday shortly after announcing his resignation. “It’s a great bunch of guys that are really passionate about coaching and understand the game. I will do everything I can if they still want to be in coaching. They’re all talented and we’ll make that happen.”
* What does this mean for Joe Posey? Every player will have to make a decision on whether to stay on with a new regime. Posey’s situation, obviously, is complicated by the fact that he is still on indefinite suspension. The junior guard has not been with the team since Jan. 19, when he and Rowe had a confrontation on the bench during the Dukes’ home game against George Mason.
Posey said he hasn’t spoken with Keener and doesn’t expect to return to the team this season. He said he had planned to seek his release to possibly transfer to a Division II or III school if Keener had stayed for the final year of his contract.
Now, he’s unsure.
“Obviously, it depends on who they hire or whatever and how that comes about for me personally,” Posey said Monday. ” … They’re going to come in with their own system, what they want to do. Who knows? Maybe I would fit in somebody else’s system a lot better. It would depend on what that system was. I’m still looking at other options. I like JMU. I love being there, but at this point, it might be best for me to make a move. I don’t know yet.”
The Colonial Beach native cannot transfer to a Division I school because he has already redshirted at Madison. NCAA athletes are allowed five years to complete four seasons of eligibility.
* When does the search for a new coach begin and how will it work? Bourne said JMU administrators have already begun identifying candidates. Rather than form a search committee, Bourne said he, university president Linwood H. Rose and vice president of finance Charlie King will handle the hiring.
When Bourne conducted the coaching search that brought Keener to JMU in 2004, he used a head-hunting firm, Carr Sports Associates, to serve as a middle man. He refused to say whether he would use the same tactic again.
“All I’ll say is that the search is going to be handled within the university using all of our available resources,” he said.
* Who are the candidates? Bourne is keeping very quiet on the possibilities, but some are obvious.
One is Ron Bradley, the associate head coach at Clemson under Oliver Purnell. Bradley amassed a 193-124 record in 11 years as Radford’s head coach, leading the Highlanders to the NCAA Tournament in 1998.
After Bradley left Radford, JMU hired him at a unusually high salary to help Dillard turn around the Dukes’ sagging program. He stayed one season, 2002-03, before bolting for the ACC.
Bradley on Monday would neither confirm nor deny whether he was interested in the JMU opening.
“I haven’t even thought about it,” he said. “We’re trying to beat Miami. We’re in third place in the ACC. Until our season’s over, I just don’t think I want to comment on anything.”
Among other coaches who would seem to be logical fits are High Point’s Bart Lundy and Rider’s Tommy Dempsey.
Lundy, a Galax native who attended high school in North Carolina, is just 35 years old but already has 199 career wins. Like Bradley, Lundy declined to comment on the opening.
“At this point, I’m just coaching my team,” said Lundy, whose assistant, Don Burgess, is a Harrisonburg High School graduate. “I haven’t even thought about it. I’m just worrying about High Point.”
Dempsey – the youngest coach in Division I with at least 100 victories – also would not comment on his interest.
“We play for a regular-season championship this week,” Dempsey, a 34-year-old Scranton, Pa., native, said. “I really haven’t given another job any thought. … I think James Madison’s a great school. It’s a great college basketball job, but I have a great college basketball job.”
* Will Rodriguo Peggau still come to Harrisonburg? Though Peggau, a 6-foot-8, 225-pound Brazilian forward playing for The Patterson School in Lenoir, N.C., has signed a binding letter of intent to play for Madison next season, schools often grant players a release in cases where a coach leaves.
Would Peggau, rated a three-star recruit by Rivals.com, consider a transfer before he comes to school? Neither he nor his coach at Patterson, Chris Chaney, returned phone calls seeking comment Monday.
*Correction: An article in Tuesday’s News-Record (” Keener : It’s On Them,” DN-R Feb. 26) mistakenly reported that James Madison men’s basketball practice Monday was closed to the media. JMU did not practice Monday.
Loyola: JMU Job Appealing
HARRISONBURG – Jeff Bourne said he’s looking for a coach with a proven track record. At least one said he’s willing to listen to overtures.
Jimmy Patsos, the head coach at Loyola (Md.), said he’d be interested in replace Dean Keener as James Madison’s men’s basketball coach if the position were offered.
“I’d be interested,” Patsos said by phone Friday. “Obviously, my focus right now is on Loyola, but if that opportunity presented itself, I’d definitely look into it. I have to say that they have not contacted me, and I have not contacted them, but it’s a good job, and you can’t just turn down a job like that without looking into it.”
Patsos, a former assistant coach at Maryland, took the job at Loyola the same year Keener started at Madison. In the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, a league ranked a few notches below the Colonial Athletic Association, he’s had a much easier time rebuilding. After inheriting a program that was 1-27 in 2003-04, he’s taken the Greyhounds to the top of the MAAC. At 18-12 overall, 12-5 in the league, they have a one-game lead over Niagara in the conference. This will be Patsos’ third straight winning season with the program. His overall record is 57-60, but he’s 51-38 since going 6-22 his first season.
Elsewhere, Colorado assistant Steve McClain confirmed that he is interested in the job, though he also said he has not been contacted.
McClain was the head coach at Wyoming for nine years, helping the Cowboys to an NCAA Tournament victory in 2002, two Mountain West conference titles, three NIT’s and a 157-115 record. He was fired after last season, however, and joined first-year Colorado coach Jeff Bzdelik’s staff.
McClain has no eastern ties, but said he wants to coach in the CAA.
“I think it’s a league that you can do a lot of great things in,” McClain said. “I’m interested. There’s no question. It’s a very good job in a very good league.”
Another logical candidate for the position is Randy Peele, a Norfolk native and the first-year coach at Winthrop. Peele was promoted to head coach last season after former coach Gregg Marshall left for Wichita State. Peele has the Eagles in first place in the Big South again at 19-10 overall, 10-3 in the league. Before arriving at Winthrop, he led North Carolina-Greensboro to a Big South championship.
Peele, however, declined to comment on the position.
“I’ve got my hands full here right now, so I haven’t had time to think about it,” Peele said. “I’m taking over for a guy who went to seven NCAA Tournaments, so I’ve gotta keep it going.”
JMU Interests Jarvis
HARRISONBURG – Mike Jarvis has the itch to coach again, and he’d like to do it at James Madison.
The 62-year-old Jarvis – who made his name at St. John’s, George Washington and Boston University – confirmed Monday that he is interested in the Dukes’ head coaching position in men’s basketball, which opened on Feb. 22 when Dean Keener announced his resignation effective at the end of the season.
“When the job came open, I was asked by my attorney if it was a job that I’d be interested in,” Jarvis said from his home in Boca Raton, Fla. “And I told him, ‘Most definitely.’ The reason is, No. 1, it’s a great school. It’s also a school that has had success, even though it hasn’t had success recently, so there’s some history there. Plus, the present coach has got some nice things in place. There are some good players there, from what I understand. There are a lot of good things happening.”
JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said Monday that the school is still in the early stages of its search and still might hire a headhunter to identify more potential applicants. He would not comment on specific candidates.
Jarvis has been out of college coaching since December 2003, when his career at St. John’s abruptly ended. He now works with Athletes in Action, an Ohio-based Christian organization, coaching teams in tournaments and conducting clinics. He also is a color commentator for ESPN and a basketball analyst for Yahoo Sports.
The last two summers, Jarvis said, he took AIA teams to a tournament in Taiwan – and decided he wanted to get back into college coaching.
“I really just realized that I’m too young, I’ve got too much energy, I’m in too good of shape not to be coaching,” said Jarvis, who stressed he has not yet talked to JMU officials. “I can still use those gifts that God gave me. But it’s been a blessing to have that time off to really realize how much I enjoy it and get re-energized. I think I’ve got at least another 100 wins in me, and that’s my goal.”
If he were to attain that goal, he would become just the second Division I coach to get 100 wins at four schools, joining JMU Hall of Famer Lefty Driesell, who did it with Davidson, Maryland, James Madison and Georgia State. Jarvis has a 364-201 career record, taking Boston University to the NCAA Tournament twice before taking George Washington and St. John’s to the national playoffs three times each.
Jarvis is one of several candidates believed to be on JMU’s radar screen. Among the others:
* Ron Bradley, associate head coach, Clemson: Bradley spent a year at Madison as Sherman Dillard’s highest-paid assistant and was a head coach at Radford for 11 years, taking the Highlanders to the NCAA Tournament in 1998.
* Rick Byrd, head coach, Belmont: The Knoxville, Tenn., native has led Belmont to two straight NCAA Tournaments and has them in first place in the Atlantic Sun again.
* Steve Donahue, head coach, Cornell: Donahue has the Big Red in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 20 years.
* Chuck Driesell, assistant coach, Maryland: Driesell, son of Lefty Driesell and a former JMU assistant and head coach at Marymount, is Gary Williams’ recruiting coordinator for the Terrapins.
* Darrin Horn, head coach, Western Kentucky: The 35-year-old Kentucky native broke 100 wins this season and has the Hilltoppers tied for first place with South Alabama in the Sun Belt.
* Jeff Jones, head coach, American: The former Virginia coach and player has American atop the Patriot League.
* Mike Lonergan, head coach, Vermont: The Catholic graduate and Bowie, Md., native led the Catamounts to the America East regular-season title last year.
* Bart Lundy, head coach, High Point: Though the Galax native is just 35 years old, he’s already compiled 200 wins as a college coach.
* Steve McClain, assistant coach, Colorado: Before joining Jeff Bzdelik’s staff at Colorado, McClain took Wyoming to the NCAA’s once and the NIT twice as a head coach.
* Steve Merfeld, assistant coach, Bradley: Merfeld led Hampton to two NCAA Tournaments and a first-round upset of No. 2 seed Iowa State in 2001.
* Jimmy Patsos, head coach, Loyola (Md.): The former Maryland assistant inherited the Greyhounds after a 1-27 season in 2003-04 and has them atop the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference en route to their third straight winning season.
* Randy Peele, head coach, Winthrop: Peele, a Norfolk native, won a Big South title as head coach at North Carolina-Greensboro and has Winthrop tied for first in the Big South this season.
* Mark Phelps, assistant coach, Arizona State: The Old Dominion graduate and Virginia Beach native has been with Herb Sendek for 11 years, first at North Carolina State and now in the Pac-10.
* Larry Shyatt, assistant coach, Florida: The former Clemson and Wyoming head coach served under Billy Donovan for both of the Gators’ national-championship runs.
JMU also is interested in other coaches, a source said.
Jarvis has more experience and more wins than any of those candidates, but one thing he will have to answer for is the way his career at St. John’s ended.
He had a 110-61 career record with the Red Storm, but was fired in December 2003, just six games into the season when St. John’s started 2-4.
The team also had problems off the court. One player was arrested on marijuana possession charges in November of that year and kicked off the team. Another was arrested just before the 2002-03 season started on charges he attacked a female student. He was ordered to perform community service and undergo anger management counseling to settle the charges.
In addition, after Jarvis was fired, another player, Abe Keita, alleged that he had been paid $300 per month by a senior member of the St. John’s basketball staff when Jarvis was still in office. Jarvis denied the allegation, but a joint NCAA and St. John’s investigation produced enough evidence for the Red Storm to self-impose a one-year postseason ban and two years of probation. They also forfeited all 45 victories achieved in Keita’s career, returned 90 percent of the $50,000 they earned by participating in the 2002 NCAA Tournament, and gave up one scholarship for two seasons.
Asked if he is worried about those problems affecting his candidacy, Jarvis said, “Oh, no…. I’m not worried about the truth coming to light. All anyone has to do is really look at everything and what they’ll see is they’ll see the truth. … I would have loved to have ridden off on a big white horse, but you know what, everything happens for a reason. All I want is for them to firmly look into my record everywhere I’ve been, including St. John’s, and they’ll see that we did some marvelous things in the university and in the community, and I’m very, very proud of that.”
Latest Buzz: NBA’s Peterson?
HARRISONBURG – In a lot of ways, Buzz Peterson has it made these days.
The 45-year-old has a coveted – and probably secure – job as director of player personnel for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats, working for friend and part-owner Michael Jordan, whom he roomed with when both were members of the University of North Carolina basketball team.
Nevertheless, Peterson said Tuesday he’s thinking about getting back into coaching and would be interested in the James Madison men’s basketball vacancy if it turns out to be the right situation.
Although his name has been on the rumor lists, Peterson said he hasn’t been contacted by JMU officials and hadn’t thought about the job until called by the News-Record. If he were contacted by JMU, Peterson said, he would certainly listen.
“Oh yeah,” said Peterson, who played on the 1982 Carolina team that beat JMU 52-50 in the NCAA Tournament before going on to win the national championship. “Just because from what I’ve known about it in the past, with Lefty [Driesell] and everything, the respect I have for the school, I definitely would.”
Peterson was a college head coach for 11 years, compiling a 201-134 record from 1996 to 2007. He had three 20-win seasons at Appalachian State, capturing a Southern Conference title and two league Coach of the Year awards. From there, he went to Tulsa and won an NIT title in his only season before taking the head job at Tennessee. His foray into the big leagues didn’t go nearly as well – he was fired after going 61-59 in four seasons. Peterson then compiled a 35-25 record in two years at Coastal Carolina before moving on to the NBA last year.
Now, after a year in the front office, he’s itching to coach again.
“When you coach for 20 years, you do the teaching and all of that stuff, it’s an adjustment to get into the front office,” Peterson said by phone from Charlotte. “I stepped out of it because Michael offered me a great situation, but we were college roommates, so he knows me pretty good. He knows I’ve been into the teaching and all of that, it’s kind of in the blood.”
Peterson said he’s enjoyed working for the Bobcats, which involves not only evaluation of the franchise’s players, but also all potential draft and trade prospects. Still, he misses being on the bench.
“The biggest adjustment was you miss the camaraderie of togetherness with the players,” Peterson said. “Dealing with 20-year-olds, teaching life skills. Those are the things you miss.”
He also misses the close-knit feel of a college community.
“The right fit for me is a school that has the support from the community and the administration,” Peterson said, “in a place where my family and myself can be ingrained in the community.”
JMU is seeking a replacement for Dean Keener , who resigned after four losing seasons. Peterson is one of the biggest names to confirm his interest in the job, which is expected to pay between $300,000 and $350,000 a year. Former St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis also has publicly expressed interest.
Another rumored candidate, Cornell coach Steve Donahue, declined comment on the position.
JMU: No Finalists
HARRISONBURG – James Madison athletic director Jeff Bourne denied a report Tuesday that JMU’s search for a new basketball coach is down to three candidates.
“That is not true,” Bourne said Tuesday night. “We have not narrowed the pool to our finalists at this point.”
Dick Weiss, a veteran college basketball writer for the New York Daily News, reported on his blog Tuesday that former St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis, Marist coach Matt Brady and Michigan assistant Jerry Dunn “apparently” were Madison’s finalists.
Bourne, however, said JMU has not yet reached that stage. The school is believed to still have more than a dozen potential candidates on its list, and it hopes to hire a coach by the Final Four in early April.
Dunn did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday, but both Jarvis and Brady said they had not been told they were finalists and that they had not been invited for an interview.
“The only thing I can say is someone had called me yesterday and said they had read those names,” Jarvis said. “Maybe Dick got his information from the same source, but that’s news to me.”
Jarvis, who has been out of college coaching since December 2003, said he was still hoping to be called in for an interview.
“Seriously, I hope that I get a call saying, ‘Come on down for an interview and visit the campus,'” Jarvis said. “But that hasn’t happened. Until I hear that from James Madison, it doesn’t mean a thing.”
Brady, still under contract at Marist, was more tight-lipped.
“I have no idea if I’m a finalist,” he said.
Brady also said he has not been formally interviewed but declined further comment, refusing to say whether he is even interested in the position.
Bourne would not say Tuesday precisely where JMU is in the search process.
“It’s going to be contingent upon the final evaluation of where we see our candidate pool and the availability of some candidates,” Bourne said. “…. It depends on some mitigating factors with the schedules and opportunities of some of the candidates.”
It’s logical to assume that some of the prospects are involved in postseason tournaments, but Bourne declined to address that question.
Brady has a 73-50 record at Marist since taking over a program that was 6-22 the year before he arrived. In 2006-07, he led the Red Foxes to their highest-ever win total (25), their first outright Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular-season title, and their first postseason victory with (a win over Oklahoma State in the NIT).
He has not, however, taken Marist to the NCAA Tournament. The Red Foxes were 18-14 this season, and – like Dunn’s Michigan squad – is not involved in either the NCAA Tournament, NIT or new College Basketball Invitational.
Before arriving at Marist, Brady was an assistant coach at St. Joseph’s, where he helped the Hawks to an unbeaten regular season and an Elite Eight appearance in 2003-04. Brady also recruited guard Abdulai Jalloh – who eventually transferred to JMU and earned third-team All-Colonial Athletic Association honors this season – to St. Joe’s.
The 54-year-old Dunn was last a head coach at Penn State, from 1996-2003. He took the Nittany Lions to the postseason four times, reaching the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 2001. They also went to the NIT championship once and the semifinals twice in his tenure. The Lions followed their Sweet 16 run with back-to-back 7-21 seasons, however, and Dunn resigned in 2003. After that, he joined John Beilein’s staff at West Virginia, then moved with Beilein to Michigan this season.
Jarvis’ resume is the most extensive. He has been to eight NCAA Tournaments as a head coach, taking St. John’s there three times, George Washington three times, and Boston University twice. In 18-plus seasons, he posted a 364-201 career record. The 62-year-old Jarvis hasn’t coached college basketball, however, since he was fired from St. John’s in December, 2003.
Madison’s position opened on Feb. 22 when Dean Keener announced his resignation after four losing seasons. JMU officials have said they are seeking a proven head coach to fill the job.
JMU: Still No Hire
“We don’t have it done yet,” Bourne said. “We’re going to keep working at it, but I’m sure we won’t have anything done this weekend.”
The name mentioned with much prominence in recent days is Marist coach Matt Brady, with one rumor swirling that he had already been hired.
Brady, however, said that wasn’t true. He again said he has not been to JMU for a formal interview.
“I haven’t heard that,” Brady said Friday when asked if he had been hired. “I certainly haven’t heard that from anyone at James Madison.”
Brady has a 73-50 record in four years at Marist, a program that was 6-22 the year before his arrival.
The Red Foxes, who lost their second-leading scorer – Louie McCroskey – to an injury, were 18-14 this season.
Last year, led by NBA draftee Jared Jordan, they went 25-9, capturing the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular-season title and winning a first-round NIT game against Oklahoma.
Before taking the Marist job, Brady was an assistant coach for 17 seasons, making stops at Rhode Island, Wagner and St. Joseph’s.
He helped St. Joseph’s to an Elite Eight appearance in his final season and also recruited guard Abdulai Jalloh to the Hawks. After earning All-Atlantic 10 second-team honors as a sophomore, Jalloh transferred to James Madison and received All-Colonial Athletic Association third-team honors this season.
JMU is seeking a replacement for Dean Keener , who resigned after four consecutive losing seasons.
Brady , now Marist’s coach, said late Saturday that he had not “formally” been offered the job, but that he is scheduled to be interviewed here today.
“I’m going to be on campus Monday,” Brady said. “There are certainly details left to go over, and nothing is finalized. Nothing is a done deal.”
FoxSports.com reported Saturday that Brady was “expected” to be named the Dukes’ head coach early this week. His name has been prominently mentioned in recent days as a likely frontrunner for the job.
Although there has apparently been no job offer, Brady indicated that he is already negotiating with Madison.
“There’s been an exchange relative to the idea of the contract, and there will be more exchange with regard to that,” he said.
Brady also said he wants his family to endorse the move to Harrisonburg before he accepts the job.
“We’re going to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Brady said. “We’re going to make sure this is the place my family wants to be.”
While this will be Brady ‘s first trip to Madison, he said he has already had face-to-face meetings with JMU officials at off-campus locations.
“I’ve met two separate times with administrators, and I can’t say what the process has been like for them,” Brady said, “but for me they’ve been terrific. It’s been informative and educational.”
Brady has a 73-50 record in four years at Marist, a program that was 6-22 the year before his arrival. The Red Foxes, who lost their second leading scorer, Louie McCroskey to an injury for much of the season, finished 18-14 this year.
Last season, Brady guided Marist – which plays in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference – to the NIT, where the Red Foxes beat Oklahoma State, 67-64. Before arriving at Marist, Brady earned a reputation as an effective recruiter as an assistant at St. Joseph’s.
In previous interviews this month, Brady had declined to say whether he was interested in the JMU job. Saturday night, however, he acknowledged its appeal.
“I’m definitely interested in the job,” he said. “First and foremost, I think the basketball program has had a lot of history, not recent history, but a lot of history in good basketball teams. It’s in a great league where you have more than one opportunity to be involved in postseason play, specifically NCAA play.”
Brady has one, slim tie to James Madison. As an assistant at St. Joseph’s, he recruited rising senior guard Abdulai Jalloh. Jalloh transferred to JMU in the summer of 2006 and was a third-team All-Colonial Athletic Association selection this season.
“Abdulai’s a guy I helped recruit to St. Joe’s, but he’s not a guy that I ever had a chance to coach,” Brady said. “That’s really not a major issue. I just think the opportunity to coach in a league with a reputation like this one is what I’m really interested in.”
Last season, led by NBA draftee Jared Jordan, the Red Foxes won their first regular-season Metro Atlantic regular-season title and a program-record 25 games. They lost their conference tournament, denying the team a ticket to the NCAA playoffs.
Before arriving at Marist, Brady was an assistant coach for 17 years, making stops at Rhode Island, Wagner and St. Joseph’s. The native of Haddon Heights, N.J., played college basketball at Siena.
Madison Offers Job To Brady
HARRISONBURG – James Madison wants Matt Brady . The question now is: Does Matt Brady want James Madison?
JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne said Monday night that the school has offered its men’s basketball coaching job to Brady , who has a reputation as an effective recruiter at his previous stops.
Brady , the head coach at Marist, and his wife made a quick trip to Harrisonburg on Monday to check out the town and campus. Bourne said he left late in the afternoon to consider Madison’s offer.
“We are very close to having an arrangement finalized,” Bourne said Monday. “There is an offer.”
Bourne refused to discuss details of the contract, including the base salary figure. However, he sounded confident that any remaining sticking points could be easily resolved.
“We are very comfortable with where we are with regard to the search,” Bourne said. “We are very optimistic that we’ll be able to make an announcement this week.”
Bourne said Brady ‘s trip to Harrisonburg did not involve an interview, as Brady indicated Saturday, but simply a tour of the town.
“It was just an opportunity for he and his wife to take a look at our community and be comfortable as far as living here,” Bourne said. “…We want to make sure that he’s comfortable with this area and that it’s a place where he wants to be.”
Bourne said an interview had been conducted on an off-campus location earlier. He declined to say where it was conducted.
When contacted late Monday morning, Brady said the two sides were close to a deal but that he did not expect to finalize it that day.
“It’s close, but there’s nothing new today,” he said on his cell phone while driving around town. “We’re not quite finished yet. I don’t think it will be today. Hopefully by tomorrow we’ll have it finished.”
Brady did not return several calls and messages Monday night seeking comment on the day’s developments. He has confirmed that he’s interested in the position, mentioning Madison’s membership in the Colonial Athletic Association as one of its primary draws.
The 42-year-old Brady has a 73-50 record in four years at Marist, a program that was 6-22 a season before his arrival. This year, the Red Foxes went 18-14, taking a downturn when Louie McCroskey, their second-leading scorer, missed several games with an injury in midseason.
Last season, the Red Foxes won a school-record 25 games, capturing their first outright Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular-season title and beating Oklahoma State in the NIT for the program’s first postseason victory. The success earned Brady MAAC Coach of the Year honors.
“His teams are very, very well-prepared,” said Canisus coach Tom Parrotta, whose school is in the same conference. “He’s always got them playing hard. They’ve been at the top of the league for a few years, and that’s a testament to him, because it’s a very tough league.”
Before taking the job at Marist, Brady was an assistant coach for 17 years, making stops at Rhode Island, Wagner and St. Joseph’s. At St. Joe’s, he recruited NBA players Jameer Nelson and Delonte West. He also lured guard Abdulai Jalloh to the Hawks shortly before leaving for Marist. Jalloh later transferred to JMU, where he was a third-team All-Colonial Athletic Association pick this season.
“I think he’s a very good recruiter but he’s also a terrific game coach,” said Clark Francis, editor and publisher of Hoop Scoop magazine, a respected recruiting publication. “… He’s just a smart guy. He knows how to get it done.”
Bourne and Madison’s administration have conducted the search mostly in secret, using the Atlanta-based headhunting firm Parker Executive Search to conduct much of the business. Interestingly, one of the rumored frontrunners for the position, American head coach Jeff Jones, said he was not even contacted by Madison or the search firm.
American fell to No. 2 seed Tennessee in the first round of the NCAA Tournament after winning the Patriot League title. He said he hadn’t considered whether he was interested in the position because of his focus on his team’s run.
“I didn’t want to have any distractions going on,” he said Monday. “I wasn’t expecting anything.”
JMU is filling the vacancy created when Dean Keener resigned after four consecutive losing seasons and a 31-85 record.
JMU Gets Its Man
HARRISONBURG – Little, apparently, was still undecided when Matt Brady left Harrisonburg to return to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Monday night.
For the 42-year-old Brady , who was about to become the new head basketball coach at James Madison University, it was just a matter of finalizing a few small contract-related details and one big detail at his old school, Marist.
He had to tell his former players.
Once he let them know face-to-face that he was leaving for a bigger school and bigger conference, JMU officially announced Tuesday that Brady had accepted its offer to become the Dukes’ basketball coach.
He replaces Dean Keener, who resigned after four straight losing seasons. Brady will be formally introduced at a 1 p.m. press conference today at the Convocation Center. Official contract details were not immediately available.
“To me, I thought the only right way to handle my leaving Marist was to make sure my players knew it and heard first-hand in person,” Brady said by phone from Poughkeepsie on Tuesday. “I wanted the opportunity to speak with my team. It’s been a very emotional day for me, but the opportunity at JMU is a terrific opportunity for me and my staff and I am really grateful that the administration at JMU thinks enough of me to offer me the job.”
JMU passed up at least two bigger names, and possibly more, who expressed interest in the position. Mike Jarvis, who took St. John’s, George Washington and Boston University to the NCAA Tournament a combined eight times and compiled 364 wins, publicly campaigned for the job. Buzz Peterson, the director of player personnel for the NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats and a former coach at Tennessee, also said he’d at least be willing to listen to Madison’s overtures.
Beyond that, Ohio State’s Jim O’Brien was on the market, and there was a widely held assumption that Madison would pursue American’s Jeff Jones, who took Virginia to five NCAA Tournaments, leading the Cavaliers to the Elite Eight in 1995.
JMU, however, felt Brady was the man to resurrect a program that has had eight straight losing seasons.
“I think he’s an exceptional fit at this point in the program’s history,” Bourne said outside the Convocation Center on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after informing the basketball team that a new coach had been hired. “A very strong recruiter, a very strong teacher of the game, proven track record. He brings a lot to the table that really fills some voids for us. I think it’s all about fit.”
Bourne refused Tuesday to discuss the contract’s details, in part because he said the contract technically doesn’t exist yet. The only document currently binding the two parties, Bourne said, is a “memorandum of understanding.”
“It just outlines all the general terms of the contract and says that we will commit this to a formal university document within very short order,” said Bourne. “… What I will say at this point is that we’ve been very competitive within our league with regard to his compensation package.”
Brady wouldn’t discuss the contract, either, and didn’t mention it as a major factor in his decision to take the JMU job. One of the biggest reasons, he said, was he believes he can win at Madison.
“I know that there’s enough there to win,” Brady said. “When you inherit a program, that’s all you want to know. …. It’s a school with a great academic reputation, a nice campus, proximity to fertile recruiting areas, and it’s in a league that can potentially get multiple bids to the NCAA Tournament.”
Brady said he would most likely bring two of his three assistant coaches – Orlando Ranson and Corey Stitzel – to Madison with him. His top assistant, Rob O’Driscoll, will try for the now vacant head coaching job at Marist, but will be “welcome” at Madison if that doesn’t work out, Brady said.
The mood among the players at the Convocation Center on Tuesday was mostly one of uncertainty. They learned of the move just before a scheduled workout. However, they were pleased to have the month-long process finished.
“I’m just happy that they found a coach, regardless of who it was,” rising junior point guard Pierre Curtis said. “I’m just happy that they have somebody in place now. I don’t really know much about him – except he’s supposedly a guard’s coach – or much about his system. I just heard he’s a good coach.”
One player on the squad knows Brady pretty well. Brady recruited rising senior guard Abdulai Jalloh to St. Joseph’s just before leaving for Marist. Jalloh left two years later to transfer to JMU.
“It feels like everything is working its way out for one last hurrah,” Jalloh said. “I’ve got a great school in JMU, and now I got the guy who inked me, who I felt like was the best college coach that I could trust my abilities with.”
Brady posted a 73-50 record in four seasons at Marist, earning Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors in 2006-07, when the Red Foxes went 25-9 and beat Oklahoma State in the first round of the NIT.
Instant Wins?
HARRISONBURG – Matt Brady didn’t try selling a grand dream of the distant future to the fans and players who came to watch his introductory press conference as James Madison’s new men’s basketball coach Wednesday.
The 42-year-old Brady said repeatedly that he has no two-year, three-year or four-year plan, no long-range vision of what Madison’s basketball program will someday be. He just has a one-year plan.
And that plan is equally simple: to win – immediately. He said a winning record is attainable next season.
“Unabashedly I’m saying to you, that’s the goal,” Brady said Tuesday, standing behind a podium near center court on the floor of the Convocation Center in front of about 200 fans, members of the media and JMU administrators. “I know that this team has been through eight straight losing seasons, and I can promise you that every day until the season ends next March, that my goal is to end that streak today, and start the process on a long and prosperous streak of winning seasons.”
Athletic director Jeff Bourne said Brady , who spent the past four seasons as Marist’s head coach, has agreed to a five-year contract that will pay him a base package of $290,000 annually – $255,000 in salary and $35,000 from television and radio. That’s $95,000 per year more than departed coach Dean Keener’s initial deal.
Brady also gets a car stipend, a country club membership and a discretionary fund. He also has incentives in the contract that could pay him up to $200,000 more, though he would have to take JMU to the Final Four to collect the entire amount.
In addition, Madison boosted the assistants’ pay. Bourne said Brady ‘s three-man staff will be paid from a pool of $240,000, with each getting a car stipend worth $4,000 per year. Keener’s three assistants were paid from a $180,000 pool.
“The only negotiation point that I had asked Mr. Bourne and [president Linwood H.) Rose to consider after our first meeting was that the assistant coaches be looked after a little bit more in line with the league,” Brady said. “And I gotta tell you that we never had to talk about it again.
“When they presented to me where their vision of where the assistant coaches should be placed relative to the rest of the league, I was dumbfounded, and I was extremely impressed with that, and from that point on, this was a very easy decision to make.”
It was apparently also a surprisingly easy decision for Bourne, Rose and vice president of finance Charlie King, the university’s three-man search committee.
Bourne said the candidate pool was much deeper this time because more coaches were interested in the job. He credited two factors: the Dukes’ improvement from the beginning of Keener’s first year to his last – they were 6-22 in 2004-05, 13-17 this season – and the elevated profile of the Colonial Athletic Association in the wake of George Mason’s Final Four run in 2006.
“There were a lot of candidates we were involved with that we could not have talked to four years ago,” Bourne said.
Despite that deeper pool, and despite the fact that several bigger-name coaches, including former St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis were interested, Bourne said Brady was the only candidate interviewed twice by JMU.
” Matt Brady , why does he have the job?” Bourne asked rhetorically during his opening statement. “All you have to do is look at where JMU needs to make strides in order to get to the next level. He’s a tactician. He understands the game, he has an ability to coach student-athletes to a higher level, and that’s been proven where he was as an assistant coach and at Marist.”
There was some small rumbling of discontent among fans on message boards that Madison didn’t make a “splash” hire with Jarvis and former Tennessee coach Buzz Peterson interested, former Ohio State coach Jim O’Brien on the market and American’s Jeff Jones just up the interstate. However, many boosters contacted this week said they were pleased with the hire and weren’t concerned about getting a “name” coach, a la Lefty Driesell.
“I don’t understand why people think we need to make a splash hire,” said Jason Moore, the president of the Boston chapter of the Duke Club, the fundraising arm of Madison’s athletic department. “Did you know who [Virginia Commonwealth coach] Anthony Grant, [Old Dominion’s] Blaine Taylor or [George Mason’s] Jim Larranaga were when they were hired? Those are the coaches of the three most stable programs in our league. Were any of them splash hires? I think I’m in the minority in that opinion, but I think you give the young guy a chance.”
The young guy – if 42 is considered young – comes to Madison with the reputation of an offensive mastermind with a system largely dependent on 3-point shooting.
“What you’re getting is a guy that can really teach offensive basketball on an individual basis, player by player,” said Phil Martelli, the head coach at St. Joseph’s, where Brady was an assistant for 11 years before going to Marist. “He sees offensive basketball in a very clear, concise way.”
But Bourne said he was just as impressed at his new head man’s abilities in coaching defense. The Red Foxes, who finished 18-14 this season, ranked No. 1 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in scoring defense, field-goal percentage defense and 3-point field-goal percentage defense.
“His teams are just always up in your face,” Bourne said. “They’re just constantly in your face. He uses all sorts of different half-court traps, and there’s never a point where you’re not under some kind of pressure.”
That was obviously a major point of emphasis in the coaching search. The Dukes this season showed they could score, but they haven’t shown they can play defense. This year, they ranked first in the CAA in scoring, but for the second straight year, they finished dead last in the three defensive categories in which Marist led the MAAC.
“From a statistical analysis, this is a team that has a lot of room for growth defensively,” Brady said of his new team. “When you play in a league like the MAAC like we did or like we’re going to play here in the CAA, there’s no way around it, you have to play great defense, and I think that my commitment for this particular group is to become a much better team defensively. … We’ll talk about that immediately with this group.”
JMU’s players didn’t deny that their defense needs work.
“He told us that in the locker room too,” freshman guard Heiden Ratner said, referring to Brady ‘s first meeting with the players, which came after the press conference. “If anyone takes that offensively, then they’re crazy, because we didn’t play good enough defense. I didn’t play good enough defense. We need to stop the other team. I’m glad he noticed that.”
Despite those defensive numbers, Brady repeatedly commended Keener for leaving him a group of players that could be much more competitive now than the bare cupboard Keener inherited from Sherman Dillard in 2004.
“For me, I want to have a winning record,” Brady said. “I want to be in this business a long, long time, and I want to have a winning record every year I’m in this profession. I want to win next year, and I think there’s enough here that we can win next year.”
If he does continue to win, Bourne made it clear that Brady ‘s stay at Madison might not be lengthy.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that if he comes to JMU and does very well, he’ll have people knock on his door and have better opportunities,” Bourne said. “I would not hold that against any coach we have. We understand where we fall within the pecking order of basketball at the national level. Good coaches are likely at the end of the day, to come here, make a mark and leave. We understand that.”
Dustin Dopirak 