You’ve made postseason tournaments in the last two seasons. Did you find this class to be more aware of your program and its success than in the past?

Brown: I think that these incoming freshmen had a better idea of who we were, there’s no question about that. Just because of the exposure that you receive during that championship. You can’t even measure how important that is to any program, especially [for programs] on the mid- to low-major level like ourselves.

While it wasn’t the NCAA tournament, how important was it to land the CollegeInsider.com bid, just in terms of being able to say you’ve made postseason tournaments in two consecutive years?

Brown: Well obviously it was different because we were disappointed. Our goal was to try to repeat [as Northeast Conference champs]. To come so close and not achieve that goal was obviously a huge blow. But to receive a postseason bid [was great]. What our guys were excited about was that [the CollegeInsider.com tournament bid] recognized that we had a good season. That was the thing that, sometimes in our situation because we’re a one-bid league, if you don’t make it to the NCAA tournament, you kind of look around and say, ‘did 11 other teams have bad seasons?’ But our guys were excited to play in the [CollegeInsider.com] tournament. It was a little more gratification for all the work we put in this year, [and it showed that hard work] hadn’t gone to waste.

Golladay was a guy who committed last spring right around the time you made the NCAA tournament. How instrumental was that success for you in landing him?

Brown: He probably popped right after we finished [last season], right around April. He had verbally committed right after that tournament run, which was great because we went into the summer knowing we already had one quality player already in place.

Is it rare to land one of your top targets so early in the process?

Brown: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve had that happen to us that early, even before July, only twice now. The other kid that did it was Jean Cajou. He liked what he saw and wanted to play [for us]. Most of the time, guys we’re trying to recruit usually have a lot of other schools buzzing around. They play the wait and see with us. Hopefully the more and more success that we have, the more opportunities we’ll have to receive some early commitments from guys who are quality players. So I don’t think there’s any question that us making our tournament run had a huge effect in us getting a commitment from Dave so early.

Did his stock really rise this year? Talk about his senior season and what kind of contributions you’re hoping to get from him.

Brown: I thought Dave had a very good senior season. It’s kind of funny how it played out. He basically ended up in the same boat we did, getting all the way to the championship game and coming up a little bit short. But he had an excellent career. He’s really competitive, which is great for us. He’s a very good slasher, has a very good mid-range game, and when he comes here, we’re trying to expand his [long-range] shooting, but we don’t want to take away from what he does best -- slashing to the basket and being a good, unselfish teammate. I think Dave’s going to step right in and do some things defensively. Because he’s such a competitive guy, that’s going to benefit him. We have some players still there [at the guard spots]. He’s going to have to compete, and I think he likes that idea.

What will that competition look like?

We actually have all six [guards returning]. Dave’s a good enough player that we’re definitely going to have him come in and let him compete. We try to do that as much as possible. We pretty much do open tryouts every year. But if he can come in and take minutes or take a job, by all means we’re going to give him every opportunity to take it. I think there’s going to be some competition for some minutes. It’s going to be hard because I know the guys already here aren’t going to let their minutes go without a fight. In the past we haven’t had so many home run, top 150 or top 200 players in the country. We go the other route -- stockpile our roster with as many quality players as possible and hurt people with our depth. I know he’s looking forward to [coming in and competing].

With Sam Atupem and Markus Mitchell graduating, will Raven Barber be expected to step in fill that type of role?

Brown: Yeah, absolutely. Us losing Sam and Markus is going to be a huge blow to us. If nothing else, they were veteran guys. Those two were the [backbone] of our defense, and they were absolutely team leaders. I think what Raven’s going to be able to do right off the bat -- he’s more in the mold of Sam but he’s bigger than Sam -- is [use his athleticism] and block some shots. He’s definitely going to have the opportunity to step in and compete for some minutes and have a chance to contribute right off the bat. But again, we have one or two guys sitting out with a redshirt. But it’s a little more of an open door because we lose such quality players in Markus and Sam.

How important is it to you that Golladay and Barber both had great team success as seniors?

Brown: It’s always good and what we try to do as often as possible is recruit players from very good programs. We think we’ve done this with Dave coming in from Wise and Raven from Paul VI. They understand what it takes to win. Some of the things we ask them to do won’t be so foreign because they’re used to winning. We want to get as many guys as possible that have that experience because it’s so important. They kind of have a glimpse of what it’s going to take in order to be successful and some of that is going to come with some tough practices, some tough times, and like they say, when those things hit, the tough players last. [Dave and Raven are both] tough kids that reaped the benefits of playing for [championship contenders], and we loved that.

Overall, do you feel you filled all your needs in this class?

Brown: Yeah, I think so. We definitely [try to recruit] players for not only the here and now, but for the future as well. We’re very excited for what we think we have. Obviously we won’t know until we put the practice gear on and start banging around. But from what we’ve seen so far from these guys, we’re excited about where we are as a program right now and about where we’re going to go. We’ll continue to try and recruit quality players ... [and we hope to continue to] achieve quality results.

Baltimore Sun photo of Milan Brown by Gene Sweeney Jr. / March 21, 2008