Morrill’s new help
Eight new players in uniform are not the only fresh faces on the bench for the USU men’s basketball team this season.
Two other new faces will frequent the Utah State bench this season. However, their uniform is more the suit and tie variety.
For the first time since Stew Morrill arrived as head coach in 1998, he will not be joined on the bench by assistant coach Don Verlin, who was hired this past off-season as the head coach of the University of Idaho Vandals.
Also missing from last year’s coaching staff is James Ware, who was hired on as the top assistant at Santa Clara University over the off-season. Those two will be replaced this season with new assistant coaches Chris Jones and Tarvish Felton.
While replacing assistant coaches is an almost regular practice, replacing two in the same off-season is something previously unfamiliar to Morrill during his time at Utah State.
“There’s a lot of years we haven’t replaced one coach, but to replace two is really unusual for us,” Morrill said. “At the same time, they’re learning how everything is done, they also bring something new to the table. Their experiences, the way they’ve done things, their personality.”
Getting the new assistants adjusted to the complexities of Morrill’s system is a task that has fallen heavily on the shoulders of veteran assistant coach Tim Duryea. Duryea said this year is an adjustment from previous years because of the stability on Morrill’s staff for the majority of his years at Utah State.
“Coach Morrill doesn’t feel like he has to coach the players and the staff,” Duryea said of his role in helping the new assistants learn the ropes. “He can spend more time coaching the players and running the program and he kind of knows that I’ll take care of anything new with the new staff members.
“They’ve tried to learn what we do first and then they’ve also added great suggestions along the way,” Duryea said. “It’s just a matter of having the right attitude and being open-minded.”
Felton comes to USU from a previous coaching stint at Sacramento State University, and has a taste of college basketball in Utah having played at Southern Utah University. Felton said he believes his role as an assistant will be a mix of both learning and teaching.
“I like to believe that all of us as basketball people are students of the game,” Felton said. “You try to learn as much as you can.”
Felton also expressed his pleasure with the overall basketball atmosphere at USU.
“It’s just unbelievable what the atmosphere is like in Logan,” Felton said. “When I first moved here, just going to the local Wal-Mart, people know who you are. They love their athletic program, they love basketball here and it’s great.”
The transition for Jones was much less of a change of scenery than that of Felton’s transition. Jones comes to USU after spending the past four years at the University of Utah, and said his familiarity with Morrill and Utah State basketball made the transition an easy one.
Jones also said Duryea’s veteran presence made the learning process easier for him and Felton.
“No questions to him are dumb,” Jones said. “You can ask him anything. He’s been here long enough where he’s had to handle every situation there is so you just ask him and he tells you what they’ve done in the past and you just do what they’ve done.”
On top of Duryea’s role in getting the new assistants acquainted with USU basketball, Felton also praised the attitudes and character of the players on the team.
“Those guys don’t have egos at all,” Felton said. “Your title is ‘coach’ and they listen to you whether they’ve known you for two years or two days.”
Learning curves aside, Morrill said he is confident of the ability of the new assistants.
“They’re both experienced and that really helps,” Morrill said. “I’ve had rookies that have never recruited and never really coached that much. These two guys both have some experience and they’re both good people. I’ve been real pleased to this point.”
–matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu