Monday, October 10, 2005

Belmont Head Coach Rick Byrd
(On Center Boomer Herndon - junior transfer from UT): “I think he has a chance to be a great player for us. He will give us an immediate presence in the paint. Boomer also gives us someone to match-up with Gardner Webb’s post player, Simon Conn, and that’s important.”

(On Belmont’s outlook): “We have four starters back, and given our experience and outside shooting, we could have a nice year. We may not be as athletic as most, but we’ll be right there.”

Campbell Head Coach Robbie Laing
(On Campbell’s 2005-06 outlook): “We have all five of our starters back, but I don’t know if those will be our starters this year. I do think, if we can stay healthy and have a little luck, we could be significantly improved.”

(On the league race): “Gardner-Webb and ETSU have to be the favorites right now. We are just interested in taking another step in our building process.”

ETSU Head Coach Murry Bartow
(On joining the Atlantic Sun): “This is going to be a very good league for us. It’s going to be a transition for all of us; the coaches, players and fans. But that’s the great thing about hosting the conference tournament, maybe we can help educate some of our fans about the level of competition here.”

(On hosting the conference tournament) “This is important for our fans and for the community at large. I really think the ETSU community is going to put on a great show for the Atlantic Sun.”

FAU Head Coach Matt Doherty
(On the newness at FAU): “Everyone is new to us, we have six new players and a new staff. We look forward to starting a winning tradition at Florida Atlantic.”

(On the pluses at FAU): “We have great leadership from President Frank Brogan and Athletic Director Craig Angelos. We have a great talent base to recruit from in south Florida along with the major cities in the Northeast and Midwest.”

GWU Head Coach Rick Scruggs
(On the preseason rankings): “In this league, you can throw the rankings out the window. Last year we were picked either ninth or tenth in all the rankings, and wound up winning the league.”

(On league parity): “You hear coaches say that its going to be a close race and sometimes its coach talk, but in the A-Sun its true. There are several teams who could jump up and win this thing. We proved that last year and hope we can pull it off again.”

JU Head Coach Cliff Warren
(On JU’s 2005-06 outlook): “I’m excited about this season. We’ve got a great group of young men that are working hard at improving each day in trying to come together as a team that the school will be proud of this year.”

(On his team’s commitment): “These players have done everything that I have asked them on the court, in the classroom and in the community. They are as excited as I am about this opportunity.”

Kennesaw State Head Coach Tony Ingle
(On not being able to compete for the national tournament): “Obviously, you can’t worry about what you can’t control. We worry about what we can control, so we will concentrate on the regular season and most importantly, our philosophy is to help the players develop as students, as people and finally as basketball players.”

(On joining the Atlantic Sun Conference): I echo the feeling of the KSU community in that we are extremely proud to be a member of the Atlantic Sun Conference. It is a league that is very competitive with outstanding universities and great coaches. There is an excitement like never before on campus and we want to build on that one day at a time.

Lipscomb Head Coach Scott Sanderson
(On the season outlook): “We are very excited to have so much experience coming back. James Poindexter is a very good offensive player and very quick in the open floor. Brian Fisk is a strong, athletic guard who is probably our best defender. And Eddie Ard came off the bench the last 10 games of the season and made the All-Freshman team. He is a 6-3, 220-pound No. 3 man and he creates a lot of mismatches for other guards, I like our guard play. You have to have strong guard play to be successful in this league.”

(On the team’s strengths): “We are going to be very good defensively. We were second in the league last year to Central Florida defensively. We should be even better this season.”

(On the team’s make-up): “We are a team. We are going to beat you by committee. We don’t have a superstar.”

Mercer Head Coach Mark Slonaker:
(On the season outlook): “We feel good about the upcoming season. Anytime you have proven players on the court you feel like you have a chance on any given night. This may be the quickest team I’ve coached since I’ve been at Mercer. We’ll be competitive.”

UNF Head Coach Matt Kilcullen
(On the preseason polls): “All the polls have us picked last, so there is nowhere for us to go but up. We’ve got our work cut out for us. This season will be a challenge, but we are very much looking forward to it.”

(On making the move to the A-Sun): “Our biggest transition initially will be adjusting to the style of play at the Division I level. There will be a lot banging and physical play on both ends of the floor, and our guys will need to adjust to that.”

Stetson Head Coach Derek Waugh
(On Stetson’s preseason ranking): "The teams that generally get picked pretty high seem to be the ones that finish the previous season strong. We were in that same boat two years ago and we were picked to finish second by the coaches last year. We tend to do better when we are picked lower, so in that sense I’m glad that the expectations are lower this season."

(On what to expect from this season's squad): I think we will have more of an opportunity to run this year and play a little more up and down than we have in the last two years.