Henry, Atupem officially on staff

As first reported here, Matt Henry (assistant coach) and Sam Atupem (graduate assistant coach) were officially announced as members of the men's basketball staff on MountAthletics.com today.

Ahmad Dorsett and Mike Farrelly are expected to be announced soon as they probably have to fulfill the remainder of their contracts at Bowie State and Hoop Group, respectively.

It appears the staff has already been to work based on this Tweet by coach Dorsett on July 1 at 12:05 p.m.:

"Lunch time @ Rocky's with the Staff!"

Rocky's, of course, is the pizza place in Thurmont, Md., frequented by Mount students and employees.

BREAKING: Dorsett to round out Burke's staff

Ahmad Dorsett is expected to be hired as the final member of Mount basketball head coach Robert Burke's coaching staff in the near future, according to a source.

Although Dorsett has not been officially hired as of early Thursday, it appears that a deal is in place to bring him to Emmitsburg.

Dorsett's most recent stop has been as an assistant coach at Bowie State University in Bowie, Md., where he served for the 2009 - 2010 season.

This move would round out the coaching staff hand-picked by Burke in his first year as an NCAA Division I head coach after serving as an assistant coach at American.

While no members of the staff have been officially announced by the school, the lineup under Burke is expected to be as follows, via the reports of this blog:

Assistant coaches: Matt Henry, Mike Farrelly, Ahmad Dorsett. Graduate assistant: Sam Atupem.

The pending hiring of Dorsett means that no member of Burke's staff will have previous Divsion I coaching experience as Henry previously served as the Director of Basketball Operations for the Georgetown Hoyas while Farrelly worked for the New Jersey-based Hoop Group. Dorsett coached at Longwood University for a time, but during the school's transition period from Division II to Division I.

It should be noted that no member of Milan Brown's staff - Brion Dunlap, Kevin Robinson Jr. and Dan Engelstad - had previous Division I assistant coaching experience before coming to the Mount.

Additionally, Brown (Howard) and Dunlap (Old Dominion) played on the Division I level while Farrelly (St. Joseph's, as a walk-on) and Dorsett (George Mason) did the same. All four also played for a team that made at least one NCAA Tournament appearance.

Another notable aspect of this hiring is the fact that Dorsett is black. Like it or not, the Mount, like most schools, needed at least one black coach on staff. That statement is not to be confused with the proclamation that Dorsett is a token hire, which is clearly not the case. He is more than qualified and will be great addition and potentially the cornerstone of Burke's assistants.

Dorsett made an NCAA appearance as a member of Jim Larranaga's George Mason squad in 1999 and was a team captain in his final three seasons. For one season before joining the BSU Bulldogs he was an assistant at Division II Mount Olive College. He has previous head coaching experience on the high school level and, as mentioned previously, also served as an assistant at Longwood University.

What this also means, quite obviously, is that Greg Paulus will not be brought on staff. Reports were the Paulus initiated contact with Burke, not the other way around, and was given serious consideration for a position on Burke's staff as recently as this week.

To summarize, Henry brings experience from a successful Big East program as well as a familiarity with Burke from his days as an assistant under John Thompson III.

Dorsett won a conference championship at the Division I level, has served as an assistant on various college levels and has head coaching experience, albeit on the high school level.

And Farrelly played for a St. Joseph's University program in the pinnacle of its success with two future NBA starters. Additionally, he appears to have been a prominent member of the Hoop Group staff for three years.

Interestingly enough, the makeup of Burke's program very closely mirrors that of the one Brown employed in his seven years as the Mount head coach. In addition to the fact that all of the returning players were Brown's recruits, Burke and Brown are also fairly close in age and both employed three young assistants for their staff. This may continue the cycle of comfort and trust between the players and their young coaches, and hopefully lead to a smooth transition to the Burke era.

It appears that Burke took a very reasonable amount of time - 41 days - to compile a staff with great potential. Although there are a number of question marks entering his first season as head coach in Emmitsburg, it does not appear that he has created any additional reasons for significant skepticism than would have already existed with any new coach.

Follow Dorsett on Twitter

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The final piece of the puzzle that many of us are eagerly awaiting to take shape is the use of the remaining two scholarships. I agree, Richard, that it could be best to eat the two scholarships and use them with an entire year of recruiting as opposed to picking up a borderline player late in the process. I do, however, think that at least one of them will be used and as I get more concrete information on the subject I'll post it.

Additionally, I know very little of the upcoming schedule; a tentative one does not even exist as of a week ago. I'm not saying there are no non-conference games on the docket, just that there is not an actual piece of paper that lists them all yet that has been made available.

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Lastly, and probably least importantly to you all, is that I verbally agreed to take a job on Tuesday. I'll write a post on it when I get a chance for anyone who is interested. Thanks for all your support and reading.

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Tweet of the Night during the first half of the NBA Finals from Michael Jordan's son, Marcus: "@SASBMJ NO ONE...And I mean NO ONE should EVER com par kobe Bryant to my dad an say that he is anywhere near close to my dad He's jagging this game"

And hopefully no one compares Marcus's grammar to that of a fourth grader. Twitter or not - he would lose.

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Interesting fact: My dad turned 50 yesterday - along with Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho". Who else had a birthday yesterday? 2Pac Shakur (the best rapper of all-time), Phil Mickelson (best left-handed golfer of all-time) and Dana Collins - a fellow class of 2009 graduate, who pole vaulted for the Mount track team. I'm glad to know that my dad is in good company for birthday celebrations even if 2Pac couldn't make dinner!

No staff? No problem - be patient

Any alarm due to the lack of announcement of coach Robert Burke's staff is still largely unwarranted due to a couple factors both internal and external.


Internally it is OK because we know that Matt Henry and Sam Atupem are already here to help. Externally, I'd like to share information regarding other schools in our conference that underwent recent coaching changes.


First let us take a look at the situation at Wagner. Dan Hurley was announced as the school's new head coach on April 5. Eight days later he hired is brother, Bobby as an assistant. I'm sure that wasn't much of a search process. Seventeen days later he brought Bashir Mason on staff before rounding out his assistants by adding Luke Murray on May 3 - 28 days later. So Hurley, who already had his brother in his back pocket, took 28 days to fill out his staff.


Robert Morris's Mike Rice recently moved on as well as you may have heard (although you wouldn't know if you clicked this link listing RMU's coaches at the time of this post), opening the spot for Andrew Toole, who was announced for his new role May 11. As an already existing member of the staff, he was able to retain Robby Priedgen, who was not asked to follow Rice. It took 15 days - May 26 - for Toole to announce Matt Hahn as his first outside assistant. And as of right now, 25 days later, his final assistant has yet to be named.


As for Quinnipiac's Tom Moore and his staff acquisitions in 2007, the details are not as easy to find but still help prove my point. Moore was announced as the new head coach on March 29 of that year, and while two of his assistants - Sean Doherty (Moore's long lost twin) and Eric Eaton - apparently had been on staff for weeks, they were not announced until May 10 - 41 days later. The third member of his staff, Scott Burrell, was not announced until JULY, according to his bio. So assuming he was hired at the earliest possible date of July 1, that would mean a 92-day window between Moore's hiring and the rounding out of his staff. With an NEC title game appearance last season and coach of the year honors in the conference, I'd say Moore's plan worked out just fine. (Burrell and Doherty are still on staff while Eaton is not.)


Which brings us back to our situation at the Mount. Burke was announced as head coach on May 6. Although Atupem still hasn't been officially named to any position, he has been around the whole time and aided Burke since his first day on the job. Then there's Henry, who has been around the office for weeks and I believe - although I cannot say for sure - that I saw him in the ARCC after the press conference. If that was the case, then he has been around for the duration of Burke's tenure as well.


Burke did not have the luxury of keeping anyone from the old staff as they all followed Milan Brown to Holy Cross, but he was fortunate to have Atupem - a strong link to the program who has great familiarity with it as well - stick around. Then he wasted little time in bringing in Henry. While it would be nice to have an official announcement on these things, it seems that we may have to wait until the entire staff is in place. That means the announcement could come tomorrow, or if it goes anything like QU's process in 2007, July - we do not really know.


Multiple assistant coaching candidates report as recently as Wednesday that they still have not heard a yes or no in regards to their hiring. It has been 32 days since Burke was announced, but at this stage of the college basketball season cycle that is not as long as it sounds, as evidenced by recent staff searches in the rest of the NEC. We know the whole staff will have our support when its named, even if it may be a little longer before we know who exactly we are supporting.


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Shoutout to Kevin Kalis, Mount class of 1999, for the beer and round of Long Island Ice Teas at Ott's last night.