Simply someday after James Madison’s record-setting males’s basketball season, coach Mark Byington agreed to turn into Vanderbilt’s head coach.
The Dukes went 32-4 this season, simply setting the college report for victories, together with a memorable season-opening upset at then-No. 4 Michigan State. They reached the Related Press High 25 for the primary time, peaking at No. 18.
They made their first NCAA Match in 11 years by profitable the Solar Belt Match and reached the spherical of 32 for the primary time since 1983, rolling previous No. 5 seed Wisconsin.
The tip lastly got here Sunday when freshman Jared McCain and fourth-seeded Duke thumped Byington’s skilled group 93-55.
Byington guided JMU to 4 straight profitable seasons and gave the Dukes their first-ever victory towards Virginia throughout his second yr with them.
Earlier than arriving in Harrisonburg, Byington additionally circled a Georgia Southern program that had been struggling, profitable a minimum of 20 video games in his remaining three seasons with the Eagles.
Byington, a local of Salem within the Roanoke space, has gone 220-137 in 12 seasons as a head coach, together with 82-36 prior to now 4 with JMU.
He’ll go to a Vanderbilt program that fired Jerry Stackhouse, a former North Carolina Tar Heels and NBA standout who had been a profitable NBA G League coach. The Commodores are within the Southeastern Convention, which landed eight NCAA Match berths and, together with the Large Ten, is extra awash in TV income than different leagues.
In keeping with the Each day Information-File of Harrisonburg, Byington made simply lower than $700,000 this season and, per phrases of his contract, JMU will obtain $500,000 in a buyout.
The Each day Information-File’s Shane Mettlen listed Norfolk State’s Robert Jones, UNC Greensboro’s Mike Jones, Purdue Fort Wayne’s Jon Coffman, Youngstown State’s Jerrod Calhoun, Colgate’s Matt Langel, Samford’s Bucky McMillan, Excessive Level’s Alan Huss, UNC Asheville’s Mike Morrell and Morehead State’s Preston Spradlin as present head coaches who might be logical candidates as outgoing JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne heads the search.