Vermont adds a new assistant

A few days ago Vermont officially announced that Bryson Johnson joined the staff as an assistant coach. I have been waiting for this announcement for SO long as Jeff Goodman tweeted mid June that he had replaced Hamlet Tibbs. Johnson is a great addition to the Vermont program and has experience working with well respected coaches and was a very successful and high character player at Bucknell. He led the Bisons winningest senior class in history to two NCAA tournaments, finishing as the 11th all time scorer and also served as two time captain. He was a leader on the court and in the classroom as he also received numerous academic awards. A perfect fit for the type of player that Vermont typically recruits. He has worked on the staffs at George Mason and Brown after playing professionally overseas for a few years. The only real information Catamount fans need is when I retweeted that he had joined the staff TJ Sorrentine gave his stamp of approval as "one of the best". Enough said. I waited for confirmation on this move as I try to avoid reporting on information where I can't find official word or corroborating sources. I am going to break this rule right now however as this hire carries a greater importance with HoopDirt.com reporting that Kyle Cieplicki has left the program to take a job at Pitt. Ari Shapiro-Miller has also left to take a position at Johns Hopkins. That is significant turnover for a staff that had been stable and unchanged for 7 years. Getting an experienced and well respected coach like Johnson to join the staff will help this transition to an new era. 

I also wanted to mention a few thoughts after the release of the America East conference schedule. Vermont got the most odd and lopsided schedule of any team. Whether that is a good or bad thing I don't know but their schedule ended up very front loaded with tough games. They are going to have to come out of the non-conference firing on all cylinders as they play Hartford and Stony Brook back to back twice within the first eight games of the schedule. They don't play Maine or Binghamton once until the second half of the conference slate. Interesting to say the least. Most other teams have a far more balanced schedule with more of a mix of upper half and lower half teams throughout. As I said there are both positives and negatives to having the schedule constructed like this, it is just something I have never really seen before. I am definitely chomping at the bit for the non-conference schedule and it finally feels like the season is right around the corner.