The coaching carousel fueled by Fran Dunphy's departure to Temple has finally come to a stop.
New Brown coach Craig Robinson filled out his coaching staff by hiring Jesse Agel and former Bears guard Douglas Stewart as assistants.
Agel, a 1984 Vermont graduate, was an associate coach for the Catamounts under Tom Brennan for eight years and an assistant for 17 in total. He helped to recruit such players as Taylor Coppenrath and T. J. Sorrentine, who led Vermont to a second-round NCAA appearance in 2004.
Stewart played at Brown from 1990-1994 and captained the team in his senior year. Since then, he has served as the player/coach of the Washington Generals and the top assistant coach at Washington and Lee.
In 2002-03, he served as an assistant coach at Columbia under Armond Hill, during which time the Lions led the nation in scoring defense.
Most recently, he was the head coach at Casper College, a junior college in Wyoming.
The poor get poorer
Last year, Dartmouth finished 6-21, including a 4-10 Ivy record that put it last in the league.
And things aren't getting any easier for head coach Terry Dunn.
This year, the Big Green will have to do without a couple of contributors in 6-foot-7 junior forward Chuck Flynn and 6-9 senior center Paul Bode. Both players left the team in August.
Dunn cited Flynn's desire to concentrate on academics as the reason for his departure. The junior, who might have been in the running for a starting spot, averaged 5.5 points and 4.9 rebounds per game.
Bode contributed 3.0 points and 3.6 rebounds per game last year.
The senior, who snagged a season-high 14 rebounds in the 70-51 loss to Penn last February, might have played a marginal role this year. Dartmouth goes into the 2006-07 campaign with three underclassmen 6-foot-8 and over.
In like a Lion
Possibly the biggest coup in the Ivy League during these early days of recruiting goes to Joe Jones and Columbia.
On Monday, it was reported that the Lions nabbed a 6-foot-11 big man in Zach Crimmins. Crimmins ultimately chose Columbia - who showed signs of significant improvement last season with a weekend sweep of Penn and Princeton - over two Patriot League programs, Bucknell and Lafayette.
But Crimmins' coach at O'Connell High School in Arlington, Va., Joe Wootten, suggested in The Washington Post that he was also garnering late interest from Boston College and Tulane.
That came after early interest from at least two other high-major programs, Notre Dame and Virginia.
Crimmins joins a talented core of younger players in Manhattan, including freshmen Patrick Foley and Niko Scott. This year, though, he will struggle for time with established junior big men John Baumann and Ben Nwachukwu.
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