Due to a  partnership between the Daily News-Record and Rivals.com, this blog – at least in its current form – will cease to exist.

Instead, I direct you to DukesOfJMU.com, a new website devoted exclusively to JMU football and men’s basketball.

Subscribers will get up-to-the-minute notes from Mike Barber and me, access to photo galleries, recruiting news, Q&A’s and an exclusive message board.

In addition, every JMU story we print in the newspaper will be immediately posed on DukesofJMU.com.

If you subscribe to the site, you also gain access to content at all of Rivals’ other college sites (except for their message boards).

It will cost $9.95 a month or $100 a year. We are giving you a two-week trial for free.

Sorry to those who enjoyed my JMU tidbits while they were free. Technically, I’m not really allowed to mention JMU athletics on this blog anymore, but hopefully I will find another way to keep it active.

JMU’s basketball season begins today, so I’d be remiss not to direct you to a quick run-down previewing the Dukes’ first game. It just happens to be at an all new place…

http://jamesmadison.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1292984

Tom Parrotta

When it opens its season Sunday, James Madison will host a team that was well-represented at the Final Four last year.

No, Canisius (15-15 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) wasn’t involved on the court, but fans in Houston got the chance to read about the Golden Griffins.

A story in the official Final Four program highlighted how all five of the team’s seniors graduated in three years – three of them earning their masters degree before their basketball eligibility expired. The Griffs stay on the Buffalo campus through the summer and knock out credits while other students knock around beach balls.

“We’re kind of churning them out, guys that graduate in three years and get their masters in four,” coach Tom Parrotta, a former Hofstra assistant, said. “It’s gotten us in the door, recruiting-wise.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean the Griffs will outsmart their opponents. Asked if the team is especially heady on the court, Parrotta said, “no.” Especially this year, when he is trying to incorporate five freshmen to a team that lost five seniors, including four starters.

Still, he joked that his group would probably have a better chance against James Madison if the activity being played this weekend were different.

“So if you guys want to have a chess match in addition to a basketball game, we’re open to that as well,” the coach quipped.

Canisius is well-rounded in a worldly way too. Including Kansas State transfer Freddy Asprilla, who won’t be active Sunday against the Dukes, seven of the 15 Griffins are foreign-born (three from Puerto Rico, one Colombia, one the Netherlands, one Dominican Republic, one Uganda.)

“I’ve always done that,” Parrotta said. “We’re under the mindset that players are players are players and they’re all over.”

But Parrotta’s players lack offensive firepower that JMU coach Matt Brady’s players have this season. While the Dukes scored 98 points in an exhibition game win over Division II Philadelphia last month, the Griffins scored 98 points in two scrimmages, combined, against Colgate and a Division II team from Puerto Rico.

They did happen to win both though, according to Parrotta.

“But we played 5 on 4,” he said.

[Pause]

“I’m kidding.”

]]> http://courtside540.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/canisius-calling-check-mate/feed/ 0 markrselig Parrotta http://courtside540.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/brady-goes-hams/ http://courtside540.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/brady-goes-hams/#comments Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:53:18 +0000 Mark Selig http://courtside540.wordpress.com/?p=272 ]]>  James Madison basketball coach Matt Brady made his first appearance of the new season Monday at Ham’s restaurant, for what will be a weekly press conference.

Here are the key talking points.

Once a Duke, Never a Duke: James Millen transferred to JMU from Cincinnati State Community College before last season but was deemed academically ineligible to play in 2010-11. To play this year, he needed to apply for a waiver through the NCAA to expand his eligibility clock to six years. The Dukes found out Friday that Millen’s waiver was denied, meaning Millen will have played zero games in his two years at Madison.

BRADY on MILLEN: “James Millen, who’s as good as anyone on my team I think, he’s as good as anybody in that gym on any given day,” Brady said. “He’s a really good player, he’s a great kid. He’s one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached. So he’s heartbroken, we’re heartbroken for him. It really hurts us. Had he been eligible, we could have talked of redshirting maybe another guy.

“It’s one of those things, when you deal with the NCAA, we’ve been the beneficiary in a couple different instances with Gene [Swindle] and Humpty [Hitchens] where it worked to our favor [both players were granted immediate eligibility after transferring to JMU]. This time it didn’t work to our favor. As badly as I feel for our program because I think he’s a significant player in this league. He can guard anybody and he can score on anybody in this league, I feel worse for James because I think he has a chance to be a very good college basketball player.”

Brady said Millen is still focused on earning his degree and might become a student assistant for the team, which would keep him on the practice court.

Still Rolling in the Deep: JMU’s rotation consisted of seven regulars last season, while an eighth guy would get maybe 10-15 minutes per game. Brady expects, at least at this point in the season, that the rotation will be larger this season.

BRADY on HIS ROTATION: “It’s eight for sure. When Devon [Moore] comes back it’s nine. I don’t know that it will get longer than nine. We have to figure these freshmen out. Certainly two of them are deep in the rotation. Arman Marks and Enoch Hood are both guys that can make shots. They make shots, they make plays, they’re athletic as heck. They just care about helping the team win. They’re really good players. Keynan [Pittman] – we could be sitting here in three years, he could be the best of all of them. … They don’t have to produce and we could be really good. That’s the difference between now and a couple of years ago.”

Redshirt Rumblings: Asked if any of the Dukes would redshirt this season, Brady was coy at first, but began to reveal some of his intentions as more questions came his way.

BRADY on REDSHIRTING: “I think for their benefit, it might be great to redshirt [the freshmen]. We’re still trying to build a program, we’re still trying to get to the very top of this league, so you have to balance that with the best interest of our team right now.”

Is Pittman the likeliest redshirt among the freshmen. And could junior Alioune Diouf possibly sit out this year?

“We would consider both. If another one of the freshmen got hurt for a month, I would gladly sit one of them down if I thought Devon was coming back.”

“Alioune, we’ve taken steps to safeguard his eligibility for an additional year. Keynan, we haven’t had to make that decision yet, but that comes now. I haven’t had that conversation with Keynan, that will probably happen tomorrow.”

Starting at Center : Juniors Trevon Flores and Gene Swindle (a Virginia Tech transfer) will battle for the starting center position, and the race is coming down to the final week.

BRADY on HIS CENTERS: “[Swindle is] a good player. We really like him. And he’s a different player. He’s a physical, low-post guy who can rebound, who’s got some scoring ability, who has some great intangibles, who just wants to do whatever he can to win. He’s a lot different than the guy we had there last year [Denzel Bowles]. He’s not as good of a scorer but he brings a lot to the table that will not show up in the stat sheet.

“Trevon has made a jump. He understands that he is needed to be a big part of this team, and he’s playing with a little bit more energy than he did last year and that’s a good thing. We don’t need either guy to be all-league players, we just need them to be energetic, role players for us. And if they’re energetic role players, then we’ll be pretty good.

Who starts?

“You know what it’s probably going to come down to? Who practiced well the last couple days. I think that’s the way it should be and for the first time since I’ve been here, that’s probably the way it’s gonna go. They’re different players. Trevon is certainly more perimeter-oriented. Gene is a guy that feels very comfortable scoring the ball with his back to the basket and has more ability with his back to the basket than Tevon. But they’re both long, long guys who can guard. My intention when I got here was always to be long and tall in the frontcourt, and we are. … We’ll be able to guard the fives and the fours in this league, without a lot of help.”

What’s Goins On: As of Monday morning, power forward Rayshawn Goins still hadn’t practiced this year after suffering a right ankle sprain. His injury may have set him back in the conditioning department, which has Brady taking a new approach.

BRADY ON GOINS “To me, this is going to be an ongoing issue. The simple thing about it is though, if he’s not fit and he can’t play the style of defense we need him to play, for the first time since I’ve been here, that guy just ain’t playing. Because we have enough. This is the other untold story. I could have said that this year: If. You. Don’t. Play. Defense. You. Won’t. Play. Well, then I’m really talking about one or two guys and I wasn’t going to win 21 games. I didn’t want to be a hypocrite and sit here and say, ‘If you don’t hedge a ball-screen, you’re coming out of a game.’ Actually I can now say it and our guys all know it. … I never said it [last year] because I thought it was important for our program to make strides at winning and establish ourselves in the league, and now here we are picked in the top half of the league for the third time in three years.”

Opponent No. 1: JMU opens its season Sunday against Canisius in a return game from a Bracketbusters matchup two years ago.

BRADY on CANISIUS: “I don’t know a damn thing about them for Sunday. They have a whole new starting five. They graduated five guys. … I know they toyed around with playing a zone defense for a little bit. We probably won’t get tape on them. But I have a sense of how they’ll play from playing against them previously [both two seasons ago and when Brady was in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with Marist]. We’ll see, but we’ll have the advantage because we’re at home.”

One last note: Late last week, JMU cheerleader Nick Keatts died in his sleep. His presence at games and in the community will certainly be missed.

I met Nick two years ago when he covered a high school football game as a stringer for the Daily News-Record. I didn’t know at the time that he was a cheerleader and sometimes the man under the Duke Dog mask.

But from then on, every time I saw him at a JMU sporting event, we’d greet and he’s always have a giant smile on his face – just happy to be supporting his school. After performing stunts with the cheerleaders during basketball games, Nick would always leap and slap the backboard on the way off the court. It was as if he couldn’t find enough ways to show the energy he had for the Dukes.

Looking at his Facebook page this weekend, it was obvious that Nick touched more than just backboards. Hundreds of friends left messages in support of the young man who was constantly enthusiastic and friendly.

Hopefully Nick’s fingerprints are still on those backboards, just as they are, figuratively, on JMU athletics.

JMU will be hosting a memorial service for Nick on Tuesday at 4 p.m., at the Convocation Center: http://www.jmusports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205329318&DB_OEM_ID=14400

If this blog were ESPN Magazine, this post would be the “Back Issue.”

The CAA’s Preseason Player of the Year is BACK: After breaking his left foot in a summer league game, Old Dominion swingman Kent Bazemore could have missed up to two months of games. It appears he’ll miss none.

As Ed Miller reports, Bazemore played in the Monarch’s preseason game Friday night, scoring seven points in six minutes during the first half.

This is an immeasurably huge plus for ODU, which lost three other starters to graduation and wouldn’t have had a go-to guy without Bazemore in the lineup.

Not to mention, Baze is the Colonial’s two-time defending Defensive Player of the Year. While it may take him some time to return to his Spiderman antics, the senior’s presence alone should make his younger teammates better.

Brady’s trial pushed BACK: Originally scheduled for Nov. 14 – a day after JMU’s season-opener at home against Canisius – jury selection for the Marist College vs. Matt Brady trial was moved to April 27 after the sides met for a conference on Wednesday.

Now, Brady, JMU’s fourth-year coach who is being sued by previous employer Marist for a supposed breach-of-contract regarding recruits, won’t have to shuttle between Harrisonburg to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., throughout the year. He’ll get a full season of practices and games uninterrupted by litigations.

Basketball soon to be BACK: Itching to see college basketball again? A CAA team will be in action Monday, when William & Mary kicks off its season at St. John’s as part of the 2K Sports Classic (the game, scheduled for 7 p.m., will be televised on ESPNU).

The Tribe is banged up, and obviously less athletic than St. John’s across the board. But W&M is the type of team that can shoot its way to an upset against a more heralded opponent.

Plus, this year’s Red Storm isn’t quite the unit that reached the NCAA tournament last year. Steve Lavin lost nine seniors, including his top five scorers. This year’s squad has five freshmen, including Name Hall-of-Famer Sir’Dominic Pointer (not to be outdone, God’sgift Achiuwa is the team’s big junior college transfer. You can’t make this stuff up).

Get your seats BACK: At CAA Media Day I joked with Northeastern coach Bill Coen that, with the Celtics and the entire NBA locked out, Huskies basketball would be the main sports attraction in Boston this winter.

“Don’t count out Tom Brady,” Coen responded. “He has a little something to do with it.”

Sure, TB12’s Patriots will likely play into January again, but for Bostonians to get their basketball fix, they’ll need to look elsewhere.

Northeastern’s marketing department has devised a promotion for those forlorn Celtics fans. NBA season ticket holders will get half off NEU season tickets – giving them a dozen games for just $50.

Jonathan Lee may be no Rajon Rondo, but at least he’ll be playing basketball this winter.

guhoyas.com

The last time a Big East men’s basketball team came to the Convocation Center, James Madison upset it 70-64. That was back in December of 2008 – Matt Brady’s first year with the Dukes – when Seton Hall rolled in with an 8-2 record and were outplayed by Juwann James, Devon Moore and Co.

This Saturday, another Big East team will drive through University Boulevard to take on the Dukes. OK, it won’t mean anything, and no spectators or media members will be permitted to watch, but John Thompson III’s Georgetown Hoyas will be in town for a closed scrimmage.

“They’re going to be big and strong and really aggressive and I think they’re going to be really good defensively,” Brady said of scrimmaging the Hoyas, who will provide one last taste of alien competition before JMU begins its season on Nov. 13 at home against Canisius.

A quick G’Town run-down:

• The Hoyas finished 21-11 last season after losing their final five games, including a 74-56 drubbing at the hooves of VCU in the first second round of the NCAA Tournament.
• They lost their best two players from last season’s, guards Chris Wright and Austin Freeman. Jason Clark, Hollis Thompson and Henry Sims are their most notable returners.
• Georgetown was picked to finish 10th in the Big East this season. But that’s like George Clooney picking a Bugatti as the 10th favorite car he owns.
• Trivia: Which team was picked 10th in the Big East last preseason?
• Answer: Some school named UConn, which went on to win not only the conference but the national title.
• JMU is a fairly tall team this year, with four players over 6-foot-8. Georgetown has seven guys that tall.
• The Hoyas are also very young. They have six freshmen, including prize recruit Otto Porter, who will be a quality player if his game is anywhere near as good as his name.

That’s all the scouting you need for Saturday’s game, which no one can watch. In fact, the Dukes don’t plan to scout Georgetown, much like they didn’t scout Philadelphia before their exhibition game last week. They’re more focused on self-improvement at this point, so there’s no need to get bogged down with Hoya paranoia.

“Basketball is like war in that offensive weapons are developed first, and it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.”

Who knew Red Auerbach followed James Madison?

The regular season hasn’t started yet, so JMU and Philadelphia decided to treat their exhibition Wednesday like a glorified pick-up game. The teams combined to shoot 55 percent for the game. Philly shot 72.7 percent in the first half and 100 percent in the opening nine minutes. Jim Connolly may be a 6-3 guard for a Division II team but for one night the lefty was Chris Mullin, as he torched JMU for 33 points.

And still, the Dukes won 98-88, thanks to 29 points by A.J. Davis (boy is he fun to watch on offense) and 25 from Humpty Hitchens (we already knew how fun he is to watch on both ends).

Madison coach Matt Brady seemed only mildly concerned with the defensive woes. He knows his group has practiced just 10 times and that it’s still October. But the Dukes have a wayyyys to go if they want to call themselves a good defensive team.

Apparently, even if Bill Russell is on your roster, it always takes a while for the defense to catch up.

(Side note that seems festive nearing Hallowen: Red Auerbach died on October 28, 2006. It was a Saturday and I was at a Maryland/Florida State “blackout” football game that was clinched when the Terrapins blocked a kick in the final minute. When news of Red’s death reached me after the game, I scrambled together a cigar, sport coat and floppy 80s corduroy Celtics hat and had myself a commemorative costume for the evening’s Halloween parties. It was one of the most poorly executed costumes to date. Since then, I’ve perfected Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn and Lil’ Wayne, and have settled on the latter for this year’s holiday. )

Back to Wednesday’s exhibition:

Key Stat: (6) OK, the key stats are really those high shooting numbers, but we’ve covered that already. Six is a low number and that’s good for the Dukes when it’s representing how many turnovers they committed. Philly is not the type of team that’s going to force turnovers, but a half-dozen is still impressive for the Dukes, who  A.) were using their two-guard (Hitchens) as a point guard, B.) were using a freshman wing (Arman Marks) as a backup point guard, and C.) had about a million possessions Wednesday.

Key Quote: “We’re not really worried about our offense. Like Coach said, we gave up 50 points in the first half to them. In the first half they shot [nearly] 75 percent and one kid was 7-for-7. So we’re really not worried about our offense. We have to pick up our defense if we want to be a March Madness team.”

-Humpty Hitchens

What we learned: - A.J. Davis comes as advertised.

- Gene Swindle is certainly a serviceable CAA center. He’ll battle, make some shots, rebound the ball and give fouls. Trevon Flores looked more comfortable than he has in the past, but Swindle seemed to have more of an impact.

- Freshman Arman Marks still appears skittish running the point, but he will hit an open 3. CAA Deputy Commish Ron Bertovich, my next-door neighbor during Wednesday’s game, said Marks reminded him of fellow lefty Vertrail Vaughns of George Mason.

- Freshmen bigs Enoch Hood and Keynan Pittman are long and athletic and will give effort. But they are probably both a year away from joining the rotation on a consistent basis. Hood seems to be a little more advanced offensively.

- The team will miss Devon Moore (no duh). Call me crazy after watching a team score 98 points, but the offense didn’t look like it had very much  flow. Davis said that was because it was so early in the season and they only operated out of a few sets. Brady said he’s most concerned with where the Dukes will get their points in crunch time of a close game now that Denzel Bowles is gone. But those tough stretches could come even more often if defenses aren’t giving Davis Arian Foster-type holes to dribble through.

The Duke’s Crown Goes To… A.J. Davis (although, like his 29 points, nine rebounds and six assists, it doesn’t count toward the officially tally.) The guy is just so smooth, both in getting to the rim and finishing at it. He knows how to make lay-ups, which should not be understated. He also shot 10-of-13 from the free-throw line and even hit a 3-pointer, which may come as a surprise because he was 5-for-50 from deep in two seasons at Wyoming. Brady had to call Davis into his office Tuesday to discuss his inconsistent effort in practice. Davis was energetic in 32 minutes Wednesday. It will be interesting to see if he and Julius Wells can get it going simultaneously, or if the two wings will sort of take turns in terms of big scoring nights.

jmusports.com

The 2011-12 installment of the James Madison basketball team will be on display for the first time Wednesday night, when the Dukes host an exhbition game at 7 p.m., against Philadelphia University (a Division II team coached by recent Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Herb Magee).

These Dukes are different than the ones we saw last, being pummled 85-65 by Davidson in the CBI Tournament. So before you ask where’s he? and  who’s that?, read on.

And with the actual season 2 ½ weeks down the corner, there are some longer-term issues to consider as well.

- And starting for your Dukes…  Right now Humpty Hitchens and Andrey Semenov are the only two players coach Matt Brady has penciled in as “starters” for the regular season. Best guess is that senior Julius Wells and junior Wyoming transfer A.J. Davis, and junior center Trevon Flores join them in the pre-game announcements Wednesday.

Hitchens will slide from the “2” to point guard – a position he played at Akron – in Devon Moore’s absence during the first semeseter.

Semenov was an ace sixth man last year because his skillset is so diverse that he could fill the void of any exiting player, whether the Dukes needed to replace shooting, rebounding, defending or passing. He’ll get the nod early in the season because he’s been consistent throughout practice, whereas last year’s starting power forward, Rayshawn Goins, has yet to practice because of a high ankle sprain.

“Rayshawn’s injury has a lot to do with it,” Brady said. “Plus Andrey’s been playing really well. He’s been a good player and he’s here everyday and he’s healthy and shooting the ball well. He’s taking all good shots. He’s a challenge for our young guys to guard.”

 - Goins’ injury isn’t serious, except that it is… Goins was in good spirits and said he’d be back by next week, last time I spoke with him. While that may be true, this is the type of injury that could disrupt his senior season. The 6-foot-6, 275-pound forward was committed to shedding weight and becoming more fit this season. Knowing his personality – he’s a guy that takes nothing in life for granted and has learned the value of hard work in college – there was a good chance he’d get there.

But an ankle injury isn’t like a thumb injury. There’s not a whole lot of useful cardio – aside from churning out miles on a stationary bike – that a 275-pounder can do on one good foot.

Goins is going to have to play catch-up in the fitness game, and Brady might not have the patience for it. The fourth-year coach said a while back that if Goins wasn’t fit this year, he wouldn’t play. Brady feels he has the roster depth to motivate his players with the carrot of playing time. Goins has to show an undying work ethic when he gets back to maintain his spot as a key guy for this team.

-Crane your necks if you’re in the reserved seats…  In addition to a notebook, a pen and a tape recorder, I’m going to have to start bringing a step-stool to cover this year’s team. All 6-feet, 10 inches of Denzel Bowles are gone, but 6-11 Gene Swindle, 6-10 Keynan Pittman and 6-8 Enoch Hood joined the team, which already had the 6-11 Flores. This makes it tough on a 5-foot-8 reporter, but more pertinently, it should be tough on opposing offenses to finish at the rim. Hood smiled when he charecterized himself as a “shot blocker,” but let me down when he said he doesn’t do the Dikembe finger wag after swats. Maybe Flores, being the exeprienced Duke, will add it to his arsenal.

-Speaking of Flores…  Everyone is speaking of Flores – his coaches, his teammates, my barber (in fairness, I cut my own hair). The junior added some strength to his previously-giraffe-like frame and according to the Dukes, he’s got his post moves down pat.

Flores lost his mother at way too young an age during the summer. Connecting that type of personal situation to his basketball career isn’t fair. But Flores has been more focused and determined than ever, his teammates say. This could be the year his game ascends to the level the Dukes have always hoped to see.

-Keep your eyes on #30… That’s freshman Arman Marks, one of the most energetic, likeable players you’ll see. The Dukes have talked about chemistry issues hurting them for the past few seasons. Marks seems like the type of person who can singlehandedly alter the mood of an entire locker room, even as a freshman. He’s consistently the last guy staying after practice – “He’s as much a gym rat as I’ve had since I’ve been here,” Brady said – and he always looks happy.

“I go hard in practice to make the game easy,” Marks said. … “500 [shots] a day. That’s what Coach Brady made me do. He definitely pushes me. All the coaches push me, even players. They love to push me.”

At 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, Marks doesn’t have a freshman body, and he’s not afraid to show it either, typically taking his jersey off to reveal his cut physique once practice ends. He might not be a big-time contributor right away, but smart money says he will by the time he’s an upperclassman.

-Anyone else new? …  The Dukes have a new invited walk-on, sophomore guard Christian Pierce, a 6-5 shooter. Pierce was somewhat of a high school legend at Western Albemarle. Brady said before practice began that Pierce, who had been working out with the team last spring, might actually get a chance to play if he can stay in front of his man on defense. We’ll probably see him Wednesday, but not much more after that. Last year’s walk-ons, Andre Prince and Kevin McGaughey, combined for 24 minutes of garbage-time burn.

-D-Fence! D-Fence?…  It’s a question mark every year at JMU and will be a point of emphasis for the team in its exhibition game. Philadelphia runs a lot of halfcourt sets and screens away from the ball, somewhat similar to William & Mary. W&M was obviously a team the Dukes struggled to defend last year. If defense truly is the Dukes’ focus, they should absolutley suffocate a Division II team on Wednesday. Expect to see them toy with different presses and try to create ball-pressure across the court.

-How are Humpty’s handles? …  This will be the first extended look at Hitchens in the role of point guard. Brady won’t ask him to be a playmaker like Moore, but instead to just protect the ball and get the team into its halfcourt offense. While turnovers is an obvious stat to look at for any point guard, it’s espsically important for Hitchens. At 5-9 he doesn’t have the size to make some of the passes over defenders like Moore can, so it will be important for Hitchens to know his limitations and not try to do too much. Akron coach Keith Dambrot said this week that Hitchens was a “scoring point guard” for the Zips. Hitchens will still be able to provide a spark with his outside shooting, but his main task for these Dukes will be to play under control.

- Who looks good in street clothes?…  With Moore, James Millen and Goins all unavailable for the exhbition game, there may be times where there’s as much talent on the sideline as there is on the court. I’m just concerned with what they’ll be wearing. Moore, who sat out all of 2009-10 with a knee injury, set the standard for sideline attire – wearing a mint sweater vest one night, and bright red dress shoes the next. Millen, who spent all of last year off the court, took on a more casual look. Goins was a warmups-wearer when he missed two games last season.

georgiastatesports.com

There are three new basketball coaches in the Colonial Athletic Association, and all three say they want their teams to play energetic basketball and win right away.

But Northeastern’s sixth-year man Bill Coen may have put it best when describing the situations of George Mason’s Paul Hewitt, Towson’s Pat Skerry and Georgia State’s Ron Hunter.

“Each guy has been dealt a different hand,” said Coen, who knows all three personally.

The analogy fits. Let’s take it further.

If we’re playing the popular poker game of Texas Hold ‘Em, here’s how I see each coach’s starting hand.

Hewitt (King-Jack, off-suit)- Hewitt doesn’t walk into a surefire winner, but he starts with one of the most talented teams in the CAA. He shouldn’t be afraid to push money into the pot early, and demand a lot of his cards. Drexel, right now, is the Ace in the deck that appears to have an advantage on Mason from the start, but if some good things happen throughout the season, Hewitt could be sitting on a jackpot. The former Georgia Tech coach said he will maintain the same style of play at Mason that helped him win 189 games as a Yellow Jacket: “Up-tempo, pressure, high-scoring style.”

Skerry (2-5, off-suit)- Skerry has a very low starting hand, and just based on talent alone, he’s overmatched against his opposition from the very start. Not all is bad in Towson. The Tigers have a new athletic director – Mike Waddell – who seems aggressive and focused, and Skerry has already shown that he can recruit. In Year 1, with one of the nation’s youngest teams, he’s going to have to grind and bluff a little if he wants to take some pots. It appears he already has that in his playbook. “I want to be good right away, honestly,” Skerry told me at media day, which prompted me to ask him if that was realistic.“We’ve got to find a way,” he answered. “We need to find a way.”

Hunter (7-8, suited)- Beauty is in the eye of the beholder with this hand. Sure the cards aren’t all that high – Georgia State doesn’t have any preseason first-or-second team representatives – but it’s got a great chance to materialize over the course of the season and become a winner. No-gap suited connectors are fun in poker because they have nice odds to turn into flushes and straights. While the Panthers don’t appear to be winners from the get-go (they were picked 11th in the conference), you’ve got to appreciate them as more than a sum of parts (I picked them seventh).

We know George Mason will be a top-tier team and that Towson will be at or near the bottom this season. But Georgia State… their mystery is intriguing. And so is their head coach, Hunter, who won 293 games in 17 seasons at IUPUI, and is probably best known for coaching barefoot for charity.

“Georgia State didn’t lose because it had a lack of talent,” Hunter said at media day. “Georgia State lost because it had a sense of always losing – them making excuses. That’s what’s changed.”

Count me as a believer that the Panthers will soon snap a seven-year streak of losing seasons.

They have as much athleticism as maybe anybody in the CAA, but never seemed to play with any offensive synch during former coach Rod Barnes’ tenure. Led by still-blooming senior power forward Eric Buckner, who Hunter called “a specimen,” the Panthers have enough to make any new coach titillated with their talent.

“If we’re the 11th-best team in a league of 12, then this is the best league in the country,” Hunter said about his group’s preseason ranking. “We should be in the Big 12 or the ACC [if we’re 11^th best], because I’ve got a talented basketball team.”

Hunter believes that sophomore guard Davonta White will be perfect in his run-and-gun system. He raved about senior Jihad Ali’s length and freshman Tony Kimbro’s athleticism.

Add in senior wings Brandon McGee and Josh Micheaux, and the pieces really do seem to fit into what Hunter is trying to build. But system takes a backseat to attitude, and that’s the aspect that might boost a previously stagnant program.

“At the end of the day, the kids have to buy into what you’re doing,” Hunter said. “It doesn’t matter what system you run, it doesn’t matter what offense [or] defense; the kids that you have, have to buy in. And once you get them to buy in, then you’ve got yourself a winner.

Hunter said his recruiting strategy is to nab “Kids. Who. Know. How. To. Win.” Your high school win/loss record is as important as your vertical leap measurement, to Hunter, who said he doesn’t want to have to teach his players how to win.

How does he relate this season to a group of seniors who still need to learn how to win at the college level?

“I’ve got seven seniors that have never won before,” Hunter said. “I told them this is the last time you’re gonna play college basketball, let’s make this the best basketball year you’ve ever had.”

And maybe they’ll hit a winning hand.

(Yes, they’re paywalled. All the more reason to purchase a subscription. I’ll stop my salesman bit now.)

Wednesday: Dukes In Hunt? (JMU’s men’s team is picked fifth in the CAA, and coach Matt Brady’s outlook is positive).

Wednesday: Women Picked 3rd (JMU’s women’s team has won the last two CAA titles, but they lost a lot of talent and aren’t the favorites to 3-peat.)

Friday: North Rising In CAA? (For a change, it wasn’t a Virginia school and it wasn’t UNC-Wilmington picked to finish first in the CAA. How projected No. 1 Drexel has built a winner in the south-dominated CAA)

There was no Hoosiers-like popular choice, but a couple coaches referenced Pat Riley’s book (I’m assuming they meant The Winner Within, but neither knew the name of it).

“I use it a lot when I talk to my guys,” Brusier Flint said. … I always reference it. … [The message is] don’t talk about injuries. Don’t make the team miss the guy that’s out. How to deal with a star on the team and how to treat people, things like that.

Blaine Taylor is a Riley reader as well.

“It parallels life business with basketball. The basketball books that I hate are the ones that, January 7th: I got up, I had brunch. Had shootaround. Went and played University of Arizona. Post-game meal: spaghetti. Calipari and some of these guys write those books. Like, oh jeez. Get a life if you read one of those books. It’s like reading somebody’s diary.”

I’m praying Old Dominion plays Kentucky in an NCAA Tournament some day and Taylor tells John Calipari, “Hey, your book sucks,” while they shake hands.

As you can imagine, books by coaches are popular among coaches. The best college coach ever? John Wooden. Apparently his writings are valued too.

“I always refer back to them on a regular basis, the John Wooden books, and he has five or six of them out there,” Bill Coen said. “And they relate to life, they relate to basketball and they link the two. There’s so much wisdom in there and probably the greatest coach who’s ever coached in college. If you go back there, his wisdom is very simple and direct and it’s very useful.”

Shaka Smart is partial to another legendary coach’s teachings. His favorite book is Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson.

I was surprised initially surprised, because I think of Smart like this and think of Jackson like this, but Smart said there are definitely some similarities between the two coaches.

I’m really into the spiritual stuff like he is,” Smart said. “I’m my own guy. He’s got 10 or 11 NBA championship rings, so he’s a good guy to emulate.”

Only one coach actually had a copy of his favorite book handy when I asked. That was Buzz Peterson, who pulled a beaten hardcover of The Carolina Way out of a black bag.

“It always stays with me,” Peterson said of his former UNC coach Dean Smith’s book. “It never leaves me because there’s so much in here and I respect the man a lot … I correlate things in here to my team.”

Matt Brady tries to correlate what he reads to his team, but it isn’t from a basketball book, per se. He said he reads books like Outliers and Good To Go – practical books in which life lessons can be extracted.

“That’s the genre that I read,” Brady said. “I read stuff like that, that applies to athletics but is not necessarily about athletics.”

I mentioned Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule from Outliers – which basically says that it takes a human being 10,000 hours of practice to perfect a skill — and Brady talked about how he sees it, related to his sport.

“To me, ordinary people can do extraordinary things if put in the right situation, or more to the point, if you’re willing to put the time in,” Brady said. “To me, the Beatles, who are my favorite group, they were not a group that was destined for greatness until someone needed them to play 300 nights a year, and they honed their craft. … To become great at anything, it’s all about time.”

Paul Hewitt said he’s more interested in baseball books, citing The Summer Of 64 and The Last Good Season. Ron Hunter said he only reads religious books.

Back on the basketball track, Pat Skerry – a Medford, Mass., native –offered Basketball Junkie by former Boston Celtic and Fall River, Mass., native Chris Herron.

Monte Ross’s said A Season On The Brink while Mo Cassara claimed another John Feinstein work: The Last Amateurs

“It’s about the Patriot League before anyone had scholarships,” Cassara said. “I love that book. I think it details what college basketball is, or should be all about.”