Champion talks Young hire, Le Moyne's move to D-I

Nov. 3—Big things are happening for Nate Champion's Le Moyne men's basketball program.

The Dolphins are making a move to NCAA Division I starting this season. It's a four-year process but the Dolphins are making the move from Division II to the Division I ranks, which includes moving to a D-I schedule this season.

The Logansport connection is also going strong at Le Moyne. Champion hired fellow Logansport native Jamie Young as an assistant coach last month. Champion also married a Logansport girl, Abby (Geer) Champion, this summer.

The timing worked out perfectly for the Young hire, who brings 23 years of NBA experience as Le Moyne is making the move to Division I.

"Jamie's been a very valuable friend to me," Champion said. "When I started to get into coaching you start looking to see if you have any connections or if there is anybody you may know through some pipeline. Luckily for me Jamie was someone who was very open and receptive to trying to help me out as someone who was trying to get into the business. He was with the Celtics at the time. I've just kind of used him as a resource over the years. We stayed in contact. Unfortunately when Doc Rivers was let go with the Sixers, he was let go as well. There's always a silver lining there and that silver lining this time was he got to come and join our staff. He's been a valuable addition to us and just the overall program here. You can tell by just his experiences he's seen a lot of things and dealt with a lot. I think that will help the basketball program here at Le Moyne and also myself as a coach."

Young was with the Boston Celtics organization for 20 years before spending the last two years with the Philadelphia 76ers. He started his career with the New Jersey Nets.

During his 20 years in Boston, the Celtics qualified for the playoffs 17 times, advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals on six occasions and appeared in the NBA Finals in 2008 and 2010. The Celtics claimed the franchise's 17th NBA Championship in 2008.

That kind of experience can only help Le Moyne, which is located in Syracuse, New York.

"He has an NBA championship with the Boston Celtics. He has experience coaching in All-Star games and the Summer League, all of that stuff," Champion said. "With that comes an added value right there. The value that he adds is great and we're just really happy that he's here with us.

"Recruiting in college basketball is a lot different than the NBA when you're given a roster and you're told to coach it. So the experience of recruiting I think Jamie has embraced that part of it and is learning that part. It also helps when we do have recruits on campus to allow for him to speak about his experiences in the NBA and how what we do here translates to playing at a higher level."

Le Moyne opens the season Tuesday at Georgetown in a game that will be televised on FS2. The Dolphins travel to Villanova Friday for a game on FS1.

They'll have a four-game road trip to California later this month and also have a game at Penn State before their inaugural season in the NEC.

The NEC includes Fairleigh Dickinson, which famously knocked off No. 1 seed Purdue last March in the NCAA Tournament.

FDU also played Florida Atlantic to a competitive game in the tournament. FAU went on to reach the Final Four and was a buzzer-beater from San Diego State away for playing for the national championship.

FDU didn't even win an NEC title. Merrimack swept the regular season and tournament titles but was ineligible to play in the NCAA Tournament.

As part of the "reclassification process," teams that move up to Division I are barred from playing in NCAA championships during their four-year "transition period." Merrimack jumped from D-II to D-I in 2019-20 — making last year the fourth and final year they were banned from participating in the NCAA Tourney.

Le Moyne is just starting its transition period.

"Four years obviously isn't ideal," Champion said. "It's something that I think a lot of people feel a certain way about. But you can't look at that as a negative. We have to take the four years and hopefully develop a formula that works and continue to build the program the right way."

The NEC looks to be a challenging conference to join.

"It's very tough," Champion said. "It's very similar to the conference we just left. Two of the members were actually in the NE-10 Conference just a few years ago, Merrimack and Stonehill. With that comes the other teams that have been established there at that level and the transfer portal things as well. So year to year you're just going to get some teams that are brand new and others that have lots of returners. So it's going to be a competitive conference and I think this preseason that we have leading up to it should help us get prepared for that.

"Merrimack has won the NEC Tournament two out of their four years. Stonehill last year was a transition team and they were third in the league. There's a lot of teams that compete when they move up and hopefully we can join those teams."

Le Moyne is coming off a 15-15 season but has a lot back as well as several newcomers.

"If you look last year it was a pretty new group that we had together," Champion said. "Most of those guys that played significant minutes last year will be back again this year. We lost a lot of close games and hopefully those close games and experiences will help us as we move forward. Our schedule is pretty difficult but I think we have the right group of guys to transition into Division I this year.

"We have five grad students that we are going to be relying on pretty heavily to help us. Then we have a couple of transfers that will add value to the team as well. We got a kid from Ball State [Kaiyem Cleary] who is a fifth-year player and a junior college transfer that will be pretty good for us. We have a young freshman out of Southport High School in Indianapolis [AJ Dancler] that we're really high on and we think has the ability to have a pretty good career here."

Champion, 31, is in a position to succeed at his alma mater. He was a standout point guard for the Dolphins for four years from 2010-14 following a standout prep career at Logansport High School, where he earned first-team all-state honors in 2010.

"It's fantastic. Being the second youngest coach in the country is an opportunity in itself," he said. "Now doing this at my alma mater I think is something that as a coach especially as a young coach you always want to coach at the highest level. That's what we get the opportunity to do this year."