Men's NCAA Teams Have Some MAAC Connections

Here's a rundown on men's teams in this year's NCAA tournament that have MAAC connections in the program:

- John Beilein: Now in his sixth season at head coach at Michigan, he began his Division I coaching career at Canisius (1992-93 season through 1996-97). His Wolverines have a 26-7 record, but started 16-0 and have been 10-7 since. He has 689 career coaching victories, but 258 of them came at the Division II or junior college level before he got the Canisius position.

- Tim O'Toole: The former Fairfield head coach had been away from the sidelines for parts of four seasons, mostly doing some regional television work before he caught on in January of the 2011-12 season as the director of basketball operations, a non-coaching position, at Syracuse. O'Toole is also a Fairfield grad (1987) and was a solid player there.

- Dane Fischer: He was on the staff at Rider as an assistant for three seasons (2005-06 through 2007-08) before moving to his current position at Bucknell. He is currently that program's associate head coach under Dave Paulsen.

- Matt Brady, Mike Deane, Rob O'Driscoll, Lucious Jordan: They are together at James Madison University. Brady is the program's fifth-year head coach. JMU is currently 20-14 this season and earned its berth by capturing the Colonial Athletic Association's post-season tournament last week. Brady played at Siena (1983-84 through 1986-87), and played for Deane during his senior season. Brady also coached four seasons at Marist before he moved to JMU.

Deane was Siena's head coach for eight seasons (1986-87 through 1993-94), and took that program to one NCAA tournament and three NITs. He also was the head coach at Marquette, Lamar and most-recently, at Wagner, which fired him after the 2009-10 season. He had been out of coaching for two years before Brady hired him as an assistant.

O'Driscoll is a true MAAC veteran. Prior to joining Brady at JMU in 2008, he was also with Brady for four seasons at Marist. Before that he was on the Iona staff for six years and on the Manhattan staff for two seasons. He is currently the JMU program's associate head coach.

Jordan joined JMU's this season as its director of basketball operations. He played two seasons at Loyola (2001-02, 02-03) and was the MAAC's Rookie of the Year there as a freshmen. After his sophomore season he transferred to play at UAlbany.