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Men's Basketball
JUCO Coaching Report
Feb. 12, 2003
By Tony Jimenez First-year head coach Jeff Brustad may be doing battle with virtually one hand tied behind his back but he's making a lot of noise at Monroe, N.Y. in the National JC Athletic Association's Division I ranks. Monroe has run up an 18-2 record and is ranked No. 20 after having started the season at 11-0 and having been as high as No. 16 - the school's highest ever ranking while in DI - despite holding practices on an elementary school size practice court and playing its home games at Mt. St. Michael's in the Bronx, about 20 minutes away from the Monroe campus. "It's been tough," said Brustad. "To me, the hardest part has been meshing all of the players, who come from such different cultures and backgrounds." Monroe's 14-player roster includes four foreign players: 6-4 freshman Randy Alexander of Montreal, Canada, 6-11 sophomore Daniel Mogues of London, England and 6-4 sophomore Henri Maidou and 6-6 freshman Willie Youcthou of Paris, France. "We know that some of our players on their last leg and so you really have quite a lot to deal with," said Brustad. "I and my team are learning as we go along." First-year head coach Jeff Brustad may be doing battle with virtually one hand tied behind his back but he's making a lot of noise at Monroe, N.Y. in the National JC Athletic Association's Division I ranks.
Tip-Ins He shouldn't be for several good reasons. First, his team should have never even been 20-2 and ranked No. 14 by the NJCAA, given there were only three Rebels back from a team that won the national tournament championship last March. Second, Dixie State was riding the crest of a 62-game home court winning streak at 5,600-seat Burns Arena in St. George- best among all two-year schools - as of late January. Finally, Kidder had a day all coaches dream about when he saw Louisiana State stun then No. 1 nationally-ranked Arizona early in the season. Jaime Lloreda, a Dixie State player a year ago, scored 19 points against Arizona and was LSU's No. 1 rebounder and No. 2 scorer. "They found out that he wa a good scorer down low and they are using him well," said Kidder. "It is really a special feeling tha t a coach gets when he sees one of his former players doing so well."... While Dixie State is big on winning at home, coach Eddie Barnes of Tallahassee just hopes his future schedules have his team at home more. Twenty of the Eagle's 30 scheduled games this campaign are on the road... Some day - and it may not be real soon - Bob Kirk is going to retire and when he does he is going to have a lot of memories to draw on from his 32 seasons, as of today, at Allegany, Md. Kirk - No. 2 on the National JC Athletic Association's all-time winningest coaching list with a 888-171 record (an 84 per cent winning mark) - coached the Trojans to their 1,000th win since its first game in 1961-62 after they defeated Prince George's, 76-60, in late January. "This was a big night for Allegany College of Maryland basketball. It's great for our school to be able to talk about records," said Allegany coach Bob Kirk to the Cumberland Times-News. "I don't really remember my first win, but I'll remember this school's 1,000 win," Allegany has 1,000-277, record since its program's inception. The Trojans' showing this campaign - they are 19-1, on an 18-game winning streak, ranked No. 9 by the NJCAA, winners of 34 straight home games and unbeaten in 32 consecutive games in Maryland Juco Conference play - is indicative of Kirk's teams over the years.... Coach Randy Albrecht may have been at home with the flu, but his team at Meramec, Mo., went out and got him his 500th win n 26 years at the school. Albrecht, who coached at St. Louis, 1974-77, has amasssed a, 500-341, record and posted 18 successive winning records at Meramec, including that 500th against, Shawnee, Ill., 72-70... Coach Bill Brummel of Saddleback, the defending state champion in California, won his 450th game in late January when the Gauchos, then 17-5 and ranked No. 8 in the state, defeated Orange Coast, 88-47. In 22 seasons at Saddleback, Brummel is 450-228... Down the coast, in Napa, coach Bruce Chavka of Napa Valley is still learning in his second season as the school's head coach. Chavka got his job two weeks before school started last year and went 5-22; this time around he has won as many games as that with close to a month left in the season, his team sporting a 5-17 record. "All of the decisions are mine now," said Chavka, 33, who is in his first head coaching stint. "As an assistant coach you know all the answers before you know the questions. But, I love being a head coach. It's like your child, you love it no matter what."... Paul Brogan agrees. He was a 10-year high school coach before he cast his lot with Modesto, Calif., JC and has slowly improved his team. The Pirates are 14-14 as of early February after going 6-22 in his season at the helm; Modesto was 2-27 the season before Brogan got there. "The biggest difference in coaching in high school and junior college is pride," said Brogan. "You have a lot of different kids that you have to put into a team. It seems like there is no pride, like there was in high school. When juco teams lose, coaches tell me it is usually because of a lack of team play and pride." Brogan, 36, put a big feather in his hat when Modesto stunned a then 24-0 Fresno City team, 96-81, in late January... Southeastern, Iowa coach Joe O'Brien's team was not only off to its best start in school history - at 24-1 and ranked No. 1 by the NJCAA as of Feb. 4, but his players proved they are as good in the classroom. The 12 players averaged a 3.20 in first semester classes, eight players earning a 3.063 or higher. It's the highest GPA turned in by SE Iowa's players in O'Brien's 12 years at the school... Coach Mark Anderson has done well since he came to Cuyahoga in Cleveland, Ohio, an NJCAA Division II school, despite a 10-11 record as of early February. "We had a plan and we got and the players to believe in what we were doing," said Anderson. "We stayed professional and worked our sytem. But I'm like anyone else, I'd like to move up, but once you start doing that you start pressing." Does the lack of attention in the NJCAA's DII ranks bother Anderson: "Oh, no. In fact, I consider this a good opportunity for me."... It may not bother Anderson, but it grates on coach Wade Bouslog of Shawnee, Ill., who is 3-18 in his fifth year at the school, a bit. "Yeah it does, because it is very competitive and we have had a lot of kids go on and play for four-year schools," said Bouslog. "It's good basketball." Bouslog is unique in that he has three big jobs rolled into one; he is the coach, the director of the school's intramural program and the audio visual director. As the AV director he does some computer graphics and a variety of other duties at a school that has a student body of 2,500. "They want the coaching to be full time, but you know how that goes," said Bouslog, 29. "I'm young but it's getting harder."... Richland, Texas may be a NJCAA Division III school, but coach Clark Buerk, 35, is putting the school on the JC map - no matter the division - period. Richland, which has a student body of 13,000 mostly commuter students and located in north Dallas, is one of six teams in the Metro Athletic Conference, the only schools in Texas not in Division I. It has 23 games scheduled this season, 12 against Division I schools, but is 17-6 overall and rated No. 6 in the NJCAA's mid-February Division III poll. The Thunderducks scored their most stunning win of the season at Hutchinson, Kan., a storied Division I school, on Nov. 29 of last year - 73-66 - and the annual site of the NJCAA Division I tournament. Buerk rates it the school's biggest win in his two seasons there; his team was 29-4 and finished fourth in last year's Division III tournament... When Clay Armstrong of Eastern Mississippi gets down in the dumps about his team's 4-18 record as of mid-February, all he does is think back to Oct. 15 of 2002 and his predecessor, Steve Hull. He passed away because of a heart attack on the 18th green of a golf course in Philadelphia, Miss., a 40-minute drive from campus; Armstrong, his assistant, took over the coaching reins and finished last year at 7-14. Hull was 39-years-old and, says Armstrong, in "good shape. Or so everyone thought. It was his favorite course. He squatted down to read a putt, stood up and fell over. His head hit the pin."... Coach Ryan Cross of Chipola, Fla., moved his five-year record - one season at Barton County, Kan., and four at Chipola - in the juco ranks to 100-37, with a 67-57, win over St. John's River late in 2002. "I can't imagine what it would be like to get 800 wins like coach (Bob) Knight (of Texas Tech) has," said Cross... One of Cross' peers in Florida, Brac Brady of Manattee, which plays in the Suncoast Conference, doesn't have to get too concerned about 800 wins anytime soon, either. He is only 29, and relates well to his team, since he is young. "It's a two-sided coin," said Brady, who is in his fourth season as the head coach at Manatee. "I have been through what they are going through not that long ago so I know what they are going through. But some players may question whether you know what you are talking about." For the record, Brady was a heck of a player; he spent one season at Manateee and then spent three years at Palm Beach Atlantic, where he averaged 15 points and four assists as a shooting guard during his senior season... Coach Don Anderson of Northerastern in Norfolk, Neb., has been in the business for almost three decades - he first job was in high school in Canton, S. D.- and he loves it when he gets a player who can hit the 10-foot jumper, can a sweet little hook shot or maybe even know the fundamentals of the game well. "The influence of the NBA has been big," said Anderson, who is in his fifth season at Northeastern. "Players see them...and well, they forget the fundamentals and are more into stylin'. "... Former Fort Scott, Kan.,(1999-00) and Seminole State, Okla. (2000-01) juco coach and now Texas Tech assistant coach Chris Beard on his move to coach Bob Knight's staff: "I miss being a head coach because you are running your own program. It is your show. I had the chance to coach against some really good coaches in Kansas. Being a head coach is a special time."... While some other Kansas programs - such as Barton County, Seward County and Huchinson - are grabbing a lot of deserved attention, coach Kurt Young of Labette quietly has his team doing some nice things in Parsons. The Cardinals were 4-26 and 9-21 in Young's first two seasons at the school but as of early February, his team had his team on the verge of winning more games than those two teams combined; his team was13-9. "We feel like we have turned the corner," said Young. "We felt like this
third year here would be the year of change for us."
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