Vermont officially announced Nathan Johnson as the new assistant coach for the men's basketball team. If the name sounds familiar it is because he is in fact replacing his brother Bryson Johnson on the Vermont staff. This was rumored for a while and it is a strong addition to the coaching staff. Johnson has a wide range of coaching experience in Canada, overseas, and spent the past two seasons on Penny Hardaway's staff at Memphis. With such an eclectic mix of experiences, Johnson will be able to bring a wide range of skills to the Vermont program. He has a strong player development reputation, which is the program's bread and butter. Adding a coach with experience developing and evaluating professional players and overseas connections adds another dimension to the coaching staff. The staff has a very nice blend of recruiting connections and professional basketball development experience. Bringing some experience from a big time program like Memphis, especially with all of the changes in the college basketball landscape over the past few seasons, is also going to help the Vermont program continue to grow and adapt. This feels like another great hire by Vermont and it will be exciting to see the influence on the upcoming season and current recruiting cycle.
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Thursday, September 7, 2023
Non-Conference Schedule release
In what has become a later and later event each year, Vermont released their non-conference schedule this week. Mid-major/low-major scheduling difficulties are well documented and this year's schedule is both a reflection of those challenges and working with what they had. Last years non-conference schedule was tough, and in hindsight it was clear that the excessive travel early in the season and the lack of home games proved to do more harm than good. This year's schedule is a logical response with more regional games and extra home games. Like many mid-majors, especially good mid mid-majors, Vermont struggles to find teams that are willing to play them at home. The trend across college basketball is for the high majors to play as few home games as possible and there is a trickle down effect. With major conferences growing in size and adding more conference games, the window for scheduling is shrinking. This schedule is a good balance of winnable road games later in the schedule with home games sprinkled in early. Adding a second non D1 game is not ideal but is a trend on the rise as teams struggle to fill out their schedule. This is a schedule with a lot of winnable games without loading up on cupcakes (like UMass Lowell's non conference last season). The Myrtle Beach invitational has a great field and will give them several challenging opponents including the opening round matchup against another great mid major in College of Charleston. Getting Northeastern back on the schedule is great and I like getting both Yale and Colgate at home this season. Having the road games at the end of the conference schedule is great as it gives the team time to gel before going on the road to try and pick up a few wins. All in all another strong schedule that should they perform up to expectations, will give them the challenges they need to grow as a team but with a little more balance and room for error comparatively to last season. Also the exhibition against Catholic is a fun full circle moment for Becker!
Here is the schedule:
November 1st Exhibition: Home vs St. Michael's
It is great to be posting again! Things should start to pick up again as the season draws near so I hope to be posting again in the near future. The season is just around the corner!