June 1, 2006 - Carbondale grad signs to play at Duquesne

May 18, 2006 - Duquesne nets star transfer

James, a 6-foot-10 sophomore center, averaged an NCAA Division I-best 6.5 blocks last season while playing for Everhart at Northeastern University.

"I wanted to play for a coach that I trust and I've been successful under," James said. "That's Coach Everhart and I wanted to keep that going."

James will have to sit out the 2006-07 season and will have two years of eligibility remaining at Duquesne.James was named the 2005-06 Colonial Athletic Association defensive player of the year. He averaged 12.4 points and 7.9 rebounds and blocked 196 shots, including 10 or more in five different games. James blocked 332 shots in two seasons at Northeastern.

James needed only 29 collegiate games to become the school's all-time leading shot blocker and once averaged 16 blocks a game in a New York City school-boy tournament.

"He's a fabulous kid and a great player," said Bill Barton, who coached James at Notre Dame Prep (Mass.). "He has improved off the charts under Ron Everhart. I don't think any coach in the country could have done a better job with Shawn than Ron Everhart.

"I think in three years, if he keeps working on his game, he can make some money playing basketball."

James has played only four years of organized basketball -- one at High School of Redirection in Brooklyn, N.Y., and one at Notre Dame Prep before Northeastern.

"When I started high school, I was 5-7," he said. "So I wasn't into basketball at all. My junior year I shot up to about 6-2, and it was over after that."

James said he plans to enroll at Duquesne in the next month, at which point Everhart will be permitted to talk about him.

The transfer continues Everhart's fervent rebuilding efforts at Duquesne. He has signed nine recruits -- ranked among the deepest classes in the country -- since replacing Danny Nee in late March.

James said his transfer is no reflection on new Northeastern coach Bill Coen, a former Boston College assistant. He wanted to remain with Everhart and his up-tempo, defensive system.

"When I was thinking about transferring, I had a lot of big schools after me," James said. "But I wasn't interested in that. I was interested in playing for a coach I trust and won't steer me wrong."

James has never been to Pittsburgh and admitted he hadn't heard of Duquesne before Everhart was hired. But he is aware of the city's blue-collar image.

"Being in New York, I knew about Pittsburgh being about toughness and defense," James said. "I always knew about that."

James is all about defense. He dominated the NCAA Division I blocked shots category. He had 33 more blocks than anyone in the nation, and 59 more than the nation's No. 3 blocker, Shelden Williams of Duke.

James plans to improve his upper-body strength and offensive skills while sitting out the 2006-07 season. He will practice with the team.

"I'll work on stuff that you have to improve on," he said. "I will have a whole year to work on my game and get stronger in my upper body and lower body and work on stuff I know I'm not good at."

James was part of Everhart's rebuilding job at Northeastern and expects similar results at Duquesne, coming off a record-worst 3-24 season.

"Coach Everhart is a great coach and he attracts great players," James said. "Even with me sitting out, they are going to have a great year, and the year I'm playing, I plan on an even better year."

May 11, 2006 - Dukes' Everhart Trying to Overcome Losing

May 4, 2006 - Basketball: 2 more recruits opt for Dukes

Duquesne coach Ron Everhart got signatures on national letters of intent yesterday from two more players who will join the basketball team next season, 6-foot-6, 175-pound Robert Mitchell and 6-6, 200-pound Scott Grote.

They will join 6-7 junior-college transfer Stuard Baldonado of Miami Dade College and 6-1 Destin Damachoua of The Master's School in West Simsburg, Conn., who both signed earlier this week.

"I guess we're done for a while, maybe until the middle of next week," said Everhart, who currently has two scholarships to offer. "We hit the ground running and worked extremely hard over the past month to get to this point."

A trio of recruits are still being targeted by Everhart and his staff -- 6-0 Corey Lowe, a guard from Newton North High School in Newtonville, Mass., who recently was released from the letter of intent he signed at Providence; 6-3 Stephen Wood from Monsignor McClancy Memorial in East Elmhurst, N.Y.; 6-10 Luis Colon from Dr. Michael M.Krop High School in Miami and a teammate of Baldonado's on the AAU Miami Tropics.

Mitchell, a native of Brooklyn, averaged 10 points and 4 rebounds at Notre Dame Prep, which has nine players headed to Division I. Mitchell committed to Northeastern out of high school when Everhart was the coach there.

"He is a late-bloomer," Everhart said of Mitchell, who chose Duquesne over Southern California, Cincinnati and Wichita State. "He has improved greatly over the past year."

Grote, who has grown three inches since he graduated from Centerville (Ohio) High School, averaged 18.2 points and shot 38 percent from beyond the arc at Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock, Va.

Duquesne's fifth recruit is Hernol Hall, a 6-10 junior-college center from Lon Morris (Texas) College, who has asked for a release from the letter he signed last fall when Danny Nee was Duquesne's coach.

"I haven't given him his release," Everhart said.

April 28, 2006 - Ex-Duquesne recruit chooses Akron

McNees signed Tuesday with Akron after he was released from his national letter of intent and scholarship to Duquesne earlier this month.

The 6-foot-2 point guard chose the Zips over Eastern Kentucky, George Washington and Rhode Island. He also had offers from James Madison, Kent State, Robert Morris, Wright State and Youngstown State.

"We had a lot of offers, and Steve had a good opportunity to go play," said Bill McNees, Steve's father and former coach at Shenango. "After sorting them all out, this is the program and staff Steve felt most comfortable with." McNees averaged 28.4 points, 8.0 assists and 6.9 rebounds per game this past season, after which he was named to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Terrific 10 and All-WPIAL Class AA first team. A four-year starter, he finished his career tied for 15th in WPIAL history with 2,192 points and with school records for points, assists (824) and steals (233).

McNees made an official visit to Akron last fall before signing with Duquesne and then-coach Danny Nee. McNees asked for his release two weeks ago after meeting with new Dukes coach Ron Everhart.

"It's a school we've always been interested in and was interested in us," Bill McNees said of Akron. "It's a school we always thought very highly of. It's an excellent program. We liked the coaching staff, and it's a great atmosphere. We felt it was an excellent situation for Steve."

April 25, 2006 - Former Duquesne coach takes new job

When Penn Hills native Scott Edgar took his turn at trying to revive the moribund Duquesne  University men's basketball program, it looked as though the school had found a solution to its losing ways.

It was supposed to be the start of a feel-good story that involved a proven winner returning to his roots. Edgar has recruited, signed or coached 17 professional players during a 25-year coaching career.

But, as others had done before and since his departure, Edgar, the highly successful former Murray State coach with an impressive resume that also included a trip to the Final Four on Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson's staff, failed miserably.

Duquesne fired him in 1998 following a three-year record of 29-55.Fast forward to nearly a decade later.

After serving as an assistant coach at Texas Christian, Alabama-Birmingham and Tennessee, where he spent the past season, Edgar, 50, has landed his third head coaching job -- this time at Southeast Missouri State, which, like Murray State, is a member of the Ohio Valley Conference.

"It's got a beautiful facility, and there is a good fan base," said Edgar, who formally was named April 13 to succeed longtime Southeast Missouri State coach Gary Garner, who struggled to a 7-20 record last season.

"It's in a perfect recruiting area, an area that I've successfully recruited, except for my years at Duquesne and at TCU, where I wasn't a recruiter. I'm right in the middle of a talent-rich territory: Western Tennessee, Southeast Missouri -- Memphis, in particular -- and Arkansas.

"That's why I think this is a great head coaching position for me."

Edgar similarly gushed with optimism upon returning to his birthplace when he was hired by Duquesne in 1996 after taking Murray State to its second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance only weeks earlier.

While he was forced out several years later amid a wave of uncertainty, he has remained confident he'd receive another chance.

"The day it happened eight years ago," Edgar said, reflecting on his departure from Duquesne, "a good friend of mine, my pastor, Jay Passavant (at North Way Christian Community Church in Wexford), asked me if I understood what this means: 'In the flesh.'

"I said, 'No.'

"He said, 'This means one door is closed and, if you remain faithful, a better door will open.' (In other words), you've got to count your blessings with joy, and you have to count your trials with joy. We've always held on to that. My family and I have hung on to that statement."

Edgar broke into coaching in 1978 as an assistant at New Mexico Military Institute. Three years later, he made the jump to NCAA Division I, joining Richardson at Tulsa, where the Golden Hurricane won the 1981 National Invitation Tournament championship, and following him to Arkansas.

The next step for Edgar, a graduate of Pitt-Johnstown, was his first stop in the Ohio Valley Conference, as head coach at Murray State, the league's marquee program.

In four seasons, his teams compiled a 79-40 mark, including 56-16 in the OVC. He led the Racers to two NCAA Tournament appearances and one trip to the NIT, and twice he was named conference coach of the year, which ultimately earned him a jump to the Atlantic 10 Conference as coach of Duquesne.

"My goal now is to do what I did at Murray State, to be a great mid-major program," Edgar said. "We can be regionally dominant and nationally competitive. It's a great fit for me."

April 12, 2006 - Duquesne Looks to New Coach to Reinvigorate Basketball Program

Everhart, 44, reached an agreement with Duquesne on March 29. He becomes the 15th head coach in the 89-year history of Duquesne basketball.

“In Ron Everhart we’ve hired a head coach with a proven track record of turning programs around,” said Greg Amodio, director of athletics. “His ability as a teacher and passion for the game has enabled him to successfully rebuild programs at both McNeese State and Northeastern. His experience gives him a firm understanding of the task at hand. As someone who grew up in this area, Ron embodies the blue-collar work ethic which will be essential in his success as we move forward.”
At the March 29 press conference introducing Everhart to the team and community, President Charles Dougherty expressed his pleasure at bringing Everhart on board.

“When I first met Ron, three things impressed me. One, his commitment to maintain high academic standards. You can’t have a coach at Duquesne University without that commitment. We want players to be students while they are here. We want them to graduate, and he has that commitment to build on that Duquesne tradition. Second important thing, high ethical standards. We don’t want to be just compliant with the rules; we want to be exemplary in terms of the program we run.

“Finally, and important for us, Ron has a passion for winning,” Dougherty said, “and that is something that we had to have in our new coach … someone who can return our program to its winning ways. Our fans deserve that, our players want it, and the whole Duquesne community has been looking forward to it.”

“Maybe aside from the day my children were born, this is probably the happiest day of my life,” said Everhart, the father of 7-year-old twins. “It is not often a coach gets the opportunity to work at a University whose religious structures and values are those that I and my family try to live our lives by. A guy gets the job that he loves to do and he gets to do that in a place where he was born and raised. Today, I’m that very fortunate person.”

Everhart, a native of nearby Fairmont, W.Va., grew up listening to Duquesne basketball on his transistor radio. He has compiled a 174-172 (.503) record in 12 seasons as a head coach at McNeese State and Northeastern, while engineering dramatic turnarounds at both schools.

At Northeastern, he inherited a program that averaged fewer than nine wins in the six seasons prior to his arrival and produced 19, 21 and 19 victories in each of the past three years. In his five seasons at the Boston, Mass. school, the Huskies averaged 16.4 wins.

His 2004-05 team, which finished second in the America East Conference with a 15-3 record (21-10 overall), advanced to the postseason conference tournament championship game where it lost to NCAA Tournament Cinderella Vermont. The `05 Huskies went on to earn an NIT bid--marking Northeastern’s first postseason appearance in 14 years.

April 7, 2006 - Dukes' new basketball coach tries to keep Hall

New Duquesne basketball coach Ron Everhart was in Texas yesterday to talk to recruit Hernol Hall and will be showing three prospective recruits around campus and the city this weekend.

"I'm recruiting my brains out," Everhart said. "We're going to turn over all the stones to get them."

Hall, a 6-foot-10 center, was the prized recruit of former coach Danny Nee, who resigned after a 3-24 season. Everhart wanted to find out if Hall wants a release from the national letter of intent he signed last November.

"I don't think anything was resolved one way or the other, but we'll be talking a lot more," Everhart said of Hall, who averaged 14.9 points and 7.9 rebounds this past season at Lon Morris Community College in Jacksonville, Texas. "We left it open for more dialogue."

Everhart plans to meet with Chauncey Duke, a 6-6 sophomore at Duquesne who has indicated he wants to transfer.

"When he didn't want to do the 6 a.m. run that was a good indicator he didn't want to play basketball for Duquesne," Everhart said. "I assume he is going to ask for a transfer. I only want guys who want to be in the trenches with Duquesne. I don't want guys who don't want to be at Duquesne."

The players coming in for a visit this weekend are 5-7 freshman point guard B.J. Valentine of Howard Community College in Texas, 6-7 sophomore forward Stuard Baldanado of Miami Dade Community College and 6-2 senior Destin Damachoua at Master's Simsbury in Windsor, Conn.

Valentine, a freshman from Omaha, Neb., who would have three years eligibility, had 19 points and seven steals in Howard's 81-71 victory against Midland in the Region X championship game. Damachoua was a member of France's national team.

April 6, 2006 - Duquesne Dukes

March 31, 2006 - Duquesne's new basketball coach, Everhart, turns deaf ear to naysayers -- again

A tip-off to what Ron Everhart brings as the men's basketball coach at Duquesne University came across loud and clear yesterday when he mentioned a number of people who helped him decide to take the job -- Rick Pitino, Sonny Vaccaro, Bob Huggins and J.O. Stright, all shakers and movers in the business of college basketball.

Everhart knows how the game works when it comes to finding the players who can turn a losing program into a winner.

"I'm very fortunate to have their support and friendship," Everhart said of Pitino, the coach at Louisville; Huggins, the new coach at Kansas State; Vaccaro, the godfather of high school all-star basketball games; and Stright, who has ties to the local youth basketball scene as an AAU coach and founder of the J.O.T.S.

Everhart, 44, who has made a career of transforming downtrodden programs into successful ones as head coach at McNeese State and Northeastern and as an assistant at Tulane, signed a five-year contract worth in the neighborhood of $325,000 annually at Duquesne.

Duquesne athletic director Greg Amodio said he interviewed three candidates for the job -- Everhart, Kent State coach Jim Christian and interim Cincinnati coach Andy Kennedy.

Amodio described the process as "highly entertaining at times, frustrating at times and very enlightening. It worked out the way I had hoped."

Everhart heard from coaches and administrators around the country that Duquesne was a "graveyard" for coaches and that you couldn't win at Duquesne, which has had 12 consecutive losing season and 19 in the past 20 years.

Everhart didn't listen. He didn't listen when people told him he was crazy to be Perry Clark's assistant and start Tulane's program from scratch after a point-shaving scandal. Three years later, the Green Wave was in the Top 25.

He didn't listen when people told him you couldn't win at McNeese State. He won.

He didn't listen when they said he would bury himself at Northeastern. Again, he won.

"I didn't listen again," said Everhart, who had a 82-68 record the past five years at Northeastern and took the Huskies to the school's first National Invitation Tournament in 2005. Northeastern was 19-11 this season in its debut in the Colonial Athletic Association. Before going to Northeastern, he was 92-104 in seven years at McNeese State with one NIT berth.

"I really sought the Duquesne job. I like to think people now say, 'Ron Everhart makes a program competitive, that's what he does.' "

Everhart replaces Danny Nee, who retired after a 3-24 record this season and a five-year record of 42-101.

In addition to inheriting seven returning players, Everhart also has three recruits who signed national letters of intent last fall. They are 6-foot-9 Hernol Hall of Lon Morris College in Jacksonville, Texas, 6-5 Antonio DeMaria of Bishop Canevin High School and 6-3 Steve McNees of Shenango High School. DeMaria has asked Amodio to be released from his scholarship.

"My first order of business is to sit down with them and see where their heads are," said Everhart, a native of Fairmont, W.Va., just south of Morgantown. "I don't want somebody who doesn't want to be here. McNees is the only one I know because I watched him play last summer."

Everhart, who said he has five scholarships to offer, will continue to recruit many of the players he had been recruiting to Northeastern. A favorite recruiting pipeline for Everhart at Northeastern was Notre Dame Prep (Mass.), where 6-foot-9 sophomore Shawn Jones and 6-9 junior Benet Davis, current Northeastern players, attended. James already holds Northeastern's record for career blocks with 332.

"That's always a tough call," Everhart said of the possibility of a player following him to Duquesne. "The guys at Northeastern have a great degree of loyalty to me, and I have a great loyalty to them."

If a player were to transfer from Northeastern he would have to sit out next season at Duquesne under NCAA rules.

Everhart said he would like to bring all three of his Northeastern assistants to Duquesne -- Kim Lewis, 35, who was with Everhart for two years; and Daryn Freedman, 32, and Richard Pitino, 24, who both worked under Everhart for one year. Richard Pitino's father is the Louisville coach.

"I don't know the Duquesne assistants," Everhart said. "I'm not adverse to talking to them."

Everhart was asked if he plans to do things differently than the coaches who preceded him the past two decades at Duquesne -- Jim Satalin, John Carroll, Scott Edgar, Darelle Porter and Nee.

"I really don't know what they did. I only know one way about doing it. That's to be demanding of my players. Making them accountable and responsible," he said. "There are no shortcuts. We will have a tremendous work ethic.

"My vision is to develop a sense of pride for the name we wear on our chest. We can achieve that -- in short order."