By Mike Barber, Daily News-Record
Kirby Dean, EMU men’s basketball head coach
Kirby Dean was ready to walk away four years ago. He talked to his wife about quitting college basketball coaching, leaving Eastern Mennonite University. Many of Dean’s most talented recruits had left his team, for reasons ranging from academic to economic to "personal."
The program Dean was trying to build in Park View was suddenly knocked back down to square one, and the young coach – both fiercely competitive and deeply religious – wasn’t sure he wanted to devote himself to another go around.
"I really came close to getting out of this thing then," Dean said Tuesday after practice. "I can’t tell you how close I came."
One more shot
But after a talk with his wife, Dean – who turns 40 in March – decided to give it one more shot. He hit the road recruiting again and landed the class that now has EMU on the precipice of previously unheard-of success.
The Royals are off to a 9-1 start, the best in the program’s history. And, for the first time ever, they are ranked in the Division III Top 25, checking in at No. 24 in the latest D3hoops.com poll.
They also are 3-0 in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference – which has a total of four teams in the Top 25 – and have already scored an impressive road win over No. 12 Virginia Wesleyan.
"I think they’re at an extremely high level," Virginia Wesleyan coach Dave Macedo, whose team lost to EMU 79-76 on Nov. 28, said Tuesday. "I think Kirby and his staff have done an excellent job. They’ve been able to get higher-level talent into the program and he’s just developed it nicely."
Juniors at center of team
Four juniors – George Johnson, Todd Phillips, D.J. Hinson and Orie Pancione – have been the core of the Royals. (See team roster for individual info on players…)
To that group, Dean added former R.E. Lee High School star Eli Crawford as a transfer and another athletic group of freshmen.
Adam Hutchinson took over as the coach at Washington & Lee seven years ago, the same season Dean was hired at EMU.
"When he brings a group in, you can see that group improve from year to year," said Hutchinson, whose team plays the Royals tonight. "I told my guys something at the start of last season. I told them then that Mennonite was going to be the most improved team in the league. They’ve brought everybody back this year and they’ve added some more pieces."
EMU leads the way
EMU leads the ODAC in scoring, averaging 89.2 points per game and beating opponents by an average of 17.3 points per game. Dean’s uptempo style of play has the Royals leading the league in steals (11.4 per game) and turnover margin (plus-7 a game).
The transition offense has helped generate easy, fast-break buckets. EMU also ranks first in the ODAC in field-goal percentage (47.9 percent).
Phillips, Johnson, Crawford and Hinson all rank in the Top 15 in the league in scoring. Phillips is fourth (19 points per game), Johnson 11th (14.9 ppg), Crawford 14th (13.4 ppg) and Hinson 15th (13.1 ppg).
"You beat Virginia Wesleyan on the road, you’re loaded," Hutchinson said.
Perhaps most encouragingly for Dean and EMU, the Royals retained all their players from the first semester to the second. No one failed out. No one dropped out. No one decided to transfer.
Johnson, an explosive scorer from the point guard spot, is just now getting completely healthy after injuring his ankle in the offseason, and Dean is getting more contributions from freshmen like Andrew Thorne.
Ranking makes history for EMU
EMU has never won the ODAC tournament, never been to the NCAA Division III tourney. The Royals haven’t even won a conference tournament game since 1983. This year, they legitimately have a chance to change all that.
"We’re flattered to be ranked in the Top 25, but I guess the reality of it is, when we sat down and talked as a team about what we wanted to accomplish, that wasn’t in the conversations," Dean said. "It’s a nice feather in our cap, but that has nothing to do with our long-term goals."
Still, even with the wins and the acclaim, Dean isn’t sure he can handle being a coaching lifer. Tuesday he admitted he’d rather spend the night at home with his wife and daughter than make the drive to Northern Virginia to watch a recruit play.
He steadfastly maintains that despite the amount of time and energy he pours into coaching, basketball is not his top priority in life, but rather a distant third behind faith and family.
Winning basketball games, he insists, is simply icing on the cake.
"Right now, I’m getting a lot of icing," Dean said.