Welcome to the Chronicles of Z – it’s time for a full season (we think)
By Stephen Zerdelian
Ok, so it has been a long time since we had a full season to dig into. A really long time (611 days, to be exact), like since March 11, 2020, since the 2020 conference championship Saturday played out. There was, of course, a ‘season’ in 2020-’21 but less than half of the regional teams played at all (in a total of 96 games), so I have been labeling it the ‘asterisk season’ and will continue to do so. That’s not meant to denigrate any accomplishments that happened in that timeframe but given the conditions under which it was played… well, let’s just leave it at that. Relative normalcy should prevail as we embark of a new campaign.
Let’s get reacquainted. Here at D2 East Hoops, we cover the region from both sides of the aisle with a column-based approach. Our resident columnist Tim McCaffrey is again going to roll out his popular ‘McCaffrey’s Musings’ column on Mondays while Chris Granozio and myself will handle the men’s (him) and women’s (me) regional coverage. Both of us will have ‘Notebook’ columns weekly along with a catchall column that well delve into a variety of regional topics.
I can’t speak for Chris and his ‘Around the Rim’ column but for me and the ‘Chronicles of Z’ column (yes, ‘Z’ has been my nickname since I was 12, so my colleagues goaded me into using it for the column – which I’m ok with), there will be a mixture of regional history pieces and a few surprises tossed in. I’ll get started next week (the column will generally run on Friday) and let you see what you think.
As for the new season on the court, there are a handful of changes in the region. First off, Concordia no longer exists as a separate entity, so the CACC is down to 13 teams. There are other changes to come in the CACC but those are grist for future columns. The ECC continues to integrate their newest teams, the College of Staten Island and D’Youville, as they make the transition to full Division II membership, while the NE10 remains constant at 14 members, as it has been since Merrimack departed a few years ago.
Numerous coaching changes have occurred since the end of the asterisk season, so let’s take a quick look… Sade Jackson, an Adelphi alum, has taken over the top spot in Garden City. She returns to the Panthers after a two-year stint as an assistant under former Adelphi head coach Heather Jacobs at Wagner and two seasons as the head coach at the Pratt Institute. Jackson steps in for Missy Traversi, who assumed the head job at Army… Mike West, the former Chestnut Hill head coach, takes over at Bridgeport, succeeding Janie Mitchell, who returned to Kennesaw State as associate head coach. West is coming off two years as an assistant at Hofstra… Christie Conforti, the former leader at now-closed Concordia, is the new head coach at Caldwell, where Torey Chatman departs after four seasons. Conforti, a Pace graduate, led Concordia to the NCAA tournament last season for the first (and only) time in their history… Mary Grimes is the new head coach at Le Moyne, where she had two stints as an assistant coach (’03-’05 and ’17-’19). She follows Gina Castelli in the Dolphin hot seat, as Castelli moved into a secondary coaching role at nearby University of Albany. Grimes, a Siena alum, has coached at the likes of Syracuse, Xavier and Albany since her graduation… Kim Lusk left St. Thomas Aquinas after 13 highly successful seasons to pursue other career opportunities. Lusk won 216 games at STAC, leading the program to a pair of NCAA appearances, three regular season ECC crowns and the league playoff title in 2018. Her successor is Bill Cleary, who is coming off a five-year spell as the head coach at Colgate. Cleary also held the head jobs at Bloomsburg and Wilmington prior to Colgate… Kerry Jenkins is the new head coach at Wilmington, succeeding Jamie Hensley. Jenkins has almost two decades of head coaching experience at the collegiate level, the most recent stop being eleven years at Division III Oberlin (Ohio), where he won 117 games… Payce Lance took over as the interim head coach at D’Youville in October and will guide the Saints into ECC play. She is in her second season at the school after a playing career at Kean College, which yielded 1,221 points… For more detail, take a check of Tim McCaffrey’s new head coaches series, published earlier this month.
There will undoubtedly be plenty of changes on the court, as well. With players coming and going at every school, rosters will be markedly different. In essence, there are two rookie classes at every school, even though some of them got game time last winter. The NCAA is going to allow players an extra season of eligibility (last year materially did not count whether a player played or not), which will also change how things go. The 2021-’22 season could be the most unpredictable campaign we have ever seen and I, for one, am curious to see how it will develop. Strap in and watch it unfold.