Ned Mircetic became the first coach from a California school named community college national Coach of the Year by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association on Monday night at a banquet in Salina, Kan.
Also named the California state co-Coach of the Year for the third time and the WBCA Region 8 Coach of the Year, Mircetic will be honored next month at the NCAA Division I Women's Final Four in St. Louis.
The Women's Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) has named Ned Mircetic of Ventura College as the 2009 RUSSELL ATHLETIC/WBCA National Junior College/Community College (JC/CC) Coach of the Year. This year marks the 27th year this accolade has been presented, which has been selected by the WBCA since 1983.
"The WBCA is delighted to present Ned Mircetic with the RUSSELL ATHLETIC/WBCA National JC/CC Coach of the Year Award," said WBCA CEO Beth Bass. "Coach Mircetic, selected for the award by his peers, has had an outstanding 2009 season and is deserving of being honored for his success."
A Belgrade, Yugoslavia, native, Mircetic just completed his 19th year of coaching at Ventura College where he has competed in 12 state Elite Eight games, appeared in nine consecutive Final Four contests, made seven straight championship game appearances and captured five state titles . His teams have earned 19 consecutive Western State Conference North Division titles and his WSC record of 201-5 gives him a winning percentage of over 98 percent. Mircetic finished the season with a 34-1 record and is the first California Community College coach to receive this award.
In 2007, Mircetic became the fastest coach in collegiate basketball history at any level to reach 500 wins. He has been named the California State Coach of the Year three times and the WSC Coach of the Year seven times. He is ranked second in most wins in California Community College women's basketball history. Within the top 10, he has the highest winning percentage at nearly 87 percent. Mircetic also stresses the importance of academics, and his teams have consistently held a team grade point average of 3.0 and above. In 2002, Ventura College won the COA State Scholar Team Award with a grade point average of 3.37, becoming the first team in any sport to both win the honor and a state championship. Ventura has also been on the WBCA Top 25 Academic Honor Roll for five straight seasons.
This year, Mircetic has not only coached the women's team, but stepped in as interim head coach for the men's team as well. He led the men's team to a 24-9 overall record and a Western State Conference championship. Despite having a strong season on the men's side, Mircetic plans to continue coaching women.
"Russell Athletic is proud to honor Ned Mircetic as the winner of the WBCA's Junior College/Community College Coach of the Year Award. Ned embodies the true values of a dedicated and successful coach," said Catherine Gammon, Sr. Director of Sponsorships, Russell Athletic.
Mircetic is one of six RUSSELL ATHLETIC/WBCA National Coaches of the Year selected, which also names winners for each of the other four WBCA collegiate divisions (NCAA Divisions I, II, III, and NAIA) as well as High School. The JC/CC Russell Athletic/WBCA National Coach of the Year Committee decided in 2005-06 that they would solicit additional nominations from the committee in order to increase the number of nominations received for this award. They will also eliminate regional winners effective 2006 per a WBCA motion.
Mircetic and the national winners from the other five divisions will be honored at the RUSSELL ATHLETIC/WBCA National Coach of the Year Luncheon on Monday, April 6, 2009, at 1 p.m. CT in the Hyatt Regency St. Louis Grand Ballroom. The luncheon is part of the WBCA National Convention, held in conjunction with the NCAA® Women's Final Four® in St. Louis, Mo.
The 106 points Pasadena City scored Saturday night in its 106-93 state semifinal win over the Ventura College women's basketball team represented just the second time this decade that the Pirates allowed 100 points in a game.
It was a rough way to finish for a sophomore class that took a program that hadn't reached the Great Eight in four years and nearly brought it all the way back to a state title.
"They've taken something that was pretty good to begin with and made it significantly better across a broad front," said coach Ned Mircetic. "This year, with me coaching two teams, they had to do more on their own and they didn't skip a beat.
"It would be hard pressed at any level to find a more mature group of kids. The only issue we had this year was Pasadena's hot hand (Saturday). And they handled that well, too. They played hard. They played with dignity."
Lost in the end of the 34-game winning streak was just how far the team had come in the sophomore's tenure, that began with Jessi Selleh's arrival from Royal High in 2006 and continued with the class of Michelle Santizo, Julie Heurung, Donielle Griggs and Christine McPherson in 2007.
"Selleh being here really stabilized the program and has really made recruiting easier," said Mircetic. "They played their hearts out all year long. I don't have a single complaint."
Ventura College women's basketball coach Ned Mircetic was named the state co-Coach of the Year for the third time this morning at a meeting of the California Community College Women's Basketball Coaches Association.
San Francisco coach Jamie Wong was honored as the co-Coach of the Year from Northern California.
Ventura and San Francisco have combined to with their first 50 games this season. Ventura is 34-0 and CCSF started 26-0 before finishing 33-3 after Friday's loss to Pasadena City.
Had the Rams prevailed in the overtime contest, the two Coaches of the Year would be matching wits tonight.
Mircetic previously won the award in 1996 and 1998.
Head coach Ned Mircetic on the Ventura College women's basketball team's dramatic 60-59 state quarterfinal win over Foothill Friday night at Selland Arena in Fresno.
The Pirates started the game 0 for 15 from the field.
"Oh-for-15s are pretty scary," said Mircetic. "But this team has character, this team plays defense, this team preserves.
"We were able to overcome tonight against just an outstanding team."
As the 33-0 Ventura College women's basketball team prepares for the Great Eight in Fresno this weekend three games away from the program's third perfect season, we took a nostalgic look back at the first two unbeaten seasons in school history, the 1995-96 team (35-0) that started it all and the 1999-00 team (38-0) that finished with the best record in state history.
1995-96: Perfectly Good Memories by Joe Curley
1999-00: Reveling in a record that's tough to beat by Joe Curley
There is the potential for history this weekend at Selland Arena in Fresno.
Two of the most successful programs in California Community College women's basketball are three wins away from accomplishing something no program has ever done.
Three-time defending state champion Mount San Antonio College (31-3) is looking to raise its record fourth-straight banner.
If it does, head coach Laura Beeman would join Jerry Tarkanian as the only coach to win four straight California community college titles. Tarkanian won the first three at Riverside from 1964-66 and the fourth at Pasadena City in 1967.
"I don't look at that kind of stuff," said Beeman. "I coach because I want the kids that haven't won a state championship to have that memory the rest of their lives."
Six years after it was the dominant force in the state, Ventura (33-0) brings its third unbeaten team to the state tournament. The two previous entries in 1996 and 2000 left with perfect 35-0 and 38-0 records, respectively.
A third unbeaten champion for the Pirates would be the fifth women's team in state history to accomplish the feat. Under coach Ned Mircetic, Ventura is the only men's or women's program to do it more than once.
Mount SAC dropped a single game in each of the past two seasons and two in 2005-06.
"I have no desire to go undefeated," said Beeman. "I do not want that kind of pressure.
"Ned knows how to handle it, obviously. He knows how to prepare a team for it. He's an amazing coach, one of the best, if not the best, that (community college) ball will ever see."
Since Ventura last won a state title in 2002, the Great Eight has developed into an invitational for the South Coast Conference's North Division, as Mount SAC is making its seven appearance in eight years and Pasadena City is making its sixth straight trip.
Ventura is making its state-record 13th state tournament appearance, including 12 under Mircetic.
Six years since the Ventura College women's basketball team ceased to be the dominant force in the state, Ned Mircetic's peers wasted no time in raising the Pirates, who enter this weekend's Great Eight 33-0, back atop the favorite's pedestal.
"Obviously, Ventura (is the favorite), just because of the way that they're beating teams and the way that they're playing right now," said Antelope Valley coach John Taylor.
"They're such an intelligent basketball team... disciplined on offense and disciplined on defense.
"They take very good shots. They give you no easy shots. You really have to play really well to beat them. They are not going to beat themselves. That's what separates them, they play flawless basketball."
Mount San Antonio College coach Laura Beeman has brought the favorite to the Great Eight in each other past three seasons.
"There's only one undefeated team in the state, that's Ventura," said Beeman. "Rightfully so, everybody has to go get them.
"They're playing head and shoulders above everybody be else."
Saturday night's regional final win over No. 7 Canyons allowed Ventura College women's basketball coach Ned Mircetic to draw even with former San Mateo College coach Tom Martinez as California Community College women's basketball second-winningest coach.
Mircetic is 563-84 (.870) in 19 seasons coaching Ventura. Martinez, who coached multiple sports and was also known as Tom Brady's personal quarterback coach, was 563-103 in 21 years at College of San Mateo.
"It's an honor to be in that type of company," said Mircetic. "With all that he's accomplished, not just basketball, but all the sports that he's coached, he's one of the best coaches in multiple sports.
"I think if he had concentrated on basketball he might have 1,000 wins."
Martinez was credited with more than 1,100 wins in football, softball and women's basketball at San Mateo until his retirement in 2005. During a five-year span in the mid-1980s, he coached all three sports simultaneously.
Martinez entered the season as California Community College women's basketball's all-time winningest coach. He was passed in January by Karen Welliver, who is 572-287 in 27 years at Cerritos.
Mircetic began the year in the fifth position, but moved past Colleen Riley, who won 559 games in 25 years at Fullerton, and Caren Franci, who was 560-316 in 33 years at Santa Rosa JC.
Saturday's regional final at Ventura College should be quite a game.
Perhaps nobody has been better in transition this year than the 32-0 Ventura College women's basketball team. Certainly, no team in California has been tougher to stop on the break over the past decade than College of the Canyons.
The two teams, who have 10 players averaging in double figures combined, have also combined to win their last 46 games.
Ventura coach Ned Mircetic this week called the Cougars one of the Top 3 teams in Southern California.
It all adds up to the best of the eight regional final matchups across the state Saturday, a game that would have fit right in at next week's state championships in Fresno.
"I wish we were in another bracket," said Canyons coach Greg Herrick Thursday.
"When they're complaining about playing us, we're complaining about playing them."
It just may be the toughest game of the Pirates' season.
"I don't think we played very well (in Saturday's win over Citrus)," said Ventura guard Erika Ward. "We're going to have to play a lot better if we want to win Saturday.
"They like to run. We like to run. I think we're going to go back and forth until one team wears out."
The same day the temporary association of Ned Mircetic and Will Cowen with the Ventura College men's basketball team ended, the Ventura County Community College District began advertising for their full-time successor.
The No. 10-seeded Pirates completed a 24-9 season with perhaps its only lopsided loss of the year, 83-66, at No. 7 Riverside Friday night in the Southern California regional semifinals.
Only hours before, the district posted an advertisement for a full-time coach on its website, http://www.vcccd.edu.
"It's going to be a normal hiring process," said Ventura president Robin Calote. "The district screens for minimum qualifications. There's a standard hiring committee that narrows down the pool and then I do the same."
Applicants must apply by March 29. The district lists the requested start date as Aug. 11.
Calote was asked if the events of the past 16 months would influence the type of candidate for which she was looking.
"I'm looking for a person who has both ability as an instructor and as a coach, and who has an impeccable reputation, strong ethics and commitment to student success," said Calote.
"(Someone who) understand that it's important to do so by working within college and district procedures and Commission on Athletics bylaws."
Ventura officials are preparing for a deluge of applicants.
"I think we're going to have a great pool and there's going to be a number of great applicants from in and out of the state," said Tim Harrison. "I'm sure we'll have a wide variety."
The job became open only two days after the man who filled the position for nine years, Greg Winslow, was arrested Wednesday on five counts of felony grand theft and one count of felony public officer crime, which involves the misuse of public money, allegedly stemming from his actions as men's basketball coach and athletic director.
He remains on non-disciplinary, paid leave.
Cowen begins his new role as the school's athletic director today.
Mircetic, convinced by Calote to steward the program for one year, until the school could fill the position with a full-time hire, returns full-time to his women's program, which is 32-0 and four wins from its sixth state title.
Which, once again, leaves assistant coach Jon Wyers as the only off-season face of the program.
Riverside coach John Smith made an interesting comment in complimenting Ventura's three coaches hours before tipoff Friday.
"They play as a team," said Smith. "They play like Ned's (women's) team."
"He has the men playing with that type of unselfishness you see in the women's game... That's hard to prepare for."
Following a 3 p.m. shootaround at Wheeler Gym, Ventura College men's basketball captain Danny Benson pronounced the Pirates ready for their regional semifinal at No. 7 Riverside Saturday night.
"I feel like we're ready," said Benson. "We've practice hard all week. I feel like we're well prepared.
The team was informed head coach Ned Mircetic would not be joining the team after the conclusion of the shootaround.
"We've got to bring it back for coach Mircetic," said Benson. "We did it all through December without him. He's prepared us well and we want to practice again Monday."
Ventura College men's basketball head coach Ned Mircetic has turned the keys over to his assistant coaches, Will Cowen and Jon Wyers.
While the No. 10 Pirates (24-8) arrived in Riverside for its regional semifinal against the No. 7-seeded Tigers (25-7) Thursday night, Mircetic had planned to attempt to drive east for the game following the Ventura women's practice this afternoon.
"I'm turning it over to Will and Wyers," said Mircetic by phone as the Pirates went through a shootaround at Wheeler Gym at 3 p.m. "If they go on to play next week, they're going to be without me then too.
"It's less disruptive. They took the team out there last night. They got the flow going. I would disrupt the flow they got going."
The Pirates were 9-1 without Mircetic in November and December.
"I have absolute conference in Will Cowen, Jon Wyers and the players. My rushing out there can't make things any better... My expecation is that they will win, as they so many times did in December."
Instead, Mircetic will scout the women's regional semifinal between No. 7 Canyons and No. 10 Mount San Jacinto, the winner of which may come to the VC Athletic Event Center next weekend.
Ventura College women's basketball coach Ned Mircetic on the top-ranked and unbeaten Pirates being seeded No. 2 in the Southern California regional playoffs Monday:
"We depend on a numerical formula and, at times, it's not accurate. It doesn't represent the reality that is the season.
"But that's our system and all of us know it going in. This isn't the first year that some teams have gotten flipped around. This is just another year that it's happened.
(does the team feel slighted?)
"No, this is probably some delayed justice for Mount SAC, because last year this happened to them and they should have been No. 1."
(is the system broken?)
"It doesn't matter now because it is what it is. But it does matter that we continue to work in the offseason to make it more reflective of the actual reality of the season."
(should Ventura have been the No. 1 seed?)
"It all depends on what the definition of No. 1 seed is. Under the current definition, Cuesta, Hancock and Oxnard needed to be significantly better in order for us to be the No. 1 seed."
"The whole conference got taken down, that's why Pierce is so low. That's why Santa Barbara is so low."
"The sad part of that is Pierce is in our bracket. All three of us would have been higher with a better conference RPI and maybe Moorpark would have gotten in, too."
(so its the WSC North's fault?)
"Our conference isn't up to par numerically, because of a combination of strength of schedule and win-loss percentage. Some of our teams played weak schedule and didn't win games in those weak schedules.
Ventura College men's basketball coach Ned Mircetic on the WSC North co-champion being seeded No. 10 and facing No. 7 Riverside in Friday's regional final:
(on being seeded No. 10)
"I was hoping to be a little higher considering we're a conference champion traveling to a third-place team and we're seeded behind some teams we beat.
"But it is what it is."
(on the parity in Southern California)
"Between the top and the bottom, there really isn't much space. It's a good year for community community basketball. I think most teams that are in the playoffs this year feel like they have a shot and there's probably a number of teams right now that feel like, had they made the playoffs, they'd have had a shot.
(on traveling Riverside, which means the first women's coach to win three straight California community college state championships visits the gym of the first men's coach to win three straight California community college state championship)
"When Tark was there at Riverside was there, I was still a kid just beginning to understand basketball. When we arrive at the gym, we'll be pleasantly surprised with the colors. We should feel right at home."
(on Riverside)
"Riverside is going to be well-coached. They'll play hard. One thing I'm going to try to get across to the kids is that this game is the most important game that they'll ever play. This game is the gateway for the season to continue.
"All our energy and our entire focus has to be almost laser-like Friday at 7 p.m. Our energy and our focus has to be at its sharpest point."
"Everything we've done and prepared for the entire year has to be executed at its highest level. There cannot be a single play that we leave to chance. You have to have the mental and emotional discipline to play our absolute best for 40 minutes."
(Is this Ventura team capable of winning the state championship?)
"Of course, but it's capable of going out in the first round, too."
(On where the Pirates stand)
"We've made great plays, we've played great games. But we've also turned the ball over and been sloppy in our execution.
"For many of the kids this year, the discipline of playing hard, the discipline of keeping a tight focus on being a great teammate, has been a learning experience."
"This group, if we could keep this group together for another year and let them age and mature, they would have a clearer understanding of everything being taught and we'd be a far-superior team. But the negative side of community college coaching is you don't have the opportunity to be with the kids the third and fourth year, when you get to take advantage of all the learning that has gone on."
For weeks, the Ventura College women's basketball coaches have seen the scenario slowly unfold.
The state's only unbeaten team, which spent the last 12 weeks of the season atop the state poll, may not be the top seed come the release of the Southern California regional playoff pairings Monday.
Although Ventura is expected to be ranked No. 1 in three of the five seeding criteria, it may be weighed down -- below Mount San Antonio -- by the numerical weakness of its conference.
"We're limited to a numerical formula that doesn't have any wiggle room," said Ventura coach Ned Mircetic Saturday. "It's something we have no control over, the wins and losses of the entire league."
The scenario may not seem like a big deal, but it would completely alter the five-team path the Pirates would face over the next three weeks.
Head coach Ned Mircetic on the Ventura College men's basketball team's 76-45 win over Oxnard Wednesday night:
"I thought we started the game as well as we've started any game in league."
(on Prince Abidoye and Jeremiah Slowik's performance off the bench)
"Any time kids come off the bench and make you better, it creates games like this. Wins like this.
"That's two games in a row that Jeremiah has come off the bench and been spectacular."
(on freshman Randy Hunter's 19-point, 11-rebound, 3-steal, 2-block performance)
"Right now, we've got three guys who are still improving significantly and Randy is one of them."
Ventura College women's basketball coach Ned Mircetic on tying Caren Franci as California Community College women's basketball's third all-time winningest coach:
"All I'm going to do is think about Allan Hancock (who the Pirates play Saturday). We'll worry about that in the offseason."
The 73-32 win over Oxnard Wednesday night was win No. 560 for head coach Ned Mircetic in 19 seasons at the helm of the Ventura College women's basketball team.
That moves Mircetic past Colleen Riley, who won 559 games in 25 years at Fullerton, and into a third-place tie with Caren Franci, who was 560-316 in 33 years at Santa Rosa JC.
If the Pirates win three more games and reach the Great Eight, Mircetic will draw even with Tom Martinez, who was 563-103 in 21 years at College of San Mateo.
Martinez entered the season as California Community College women's basketball's all-time winningest coach. He was passed last month by Karen Welliver, who is 571-286 in 27 years at Cerritos.
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