Marquette men's basketball assistant coaches have seemingly been on sale at the supermarkert as of late. By adding a touch of former player who was integral to the program, a dose of basketball vagabond and a dash of NBA coaching experience, men's basketball coach Tom Crean has restocked the shelves for the 2005-'06 season.

This off-season, the men's basketball team lost assistant coaches Bo Ellis and Jeff Strohm, director of men's basketball operations Brian Wardle, and special assistant Trey Schwab, leaving a variety of openings on the coaching staff.

In all, 12 members of Crean's coaching staff have come and gone during his tenure since 1999-'00.

Crean turned to Wichita State for his first hire where Jean Prioleau had

served as an assistant coach under head coach Mark Turgeon since April 2000. Prioleau began his coaching career at Fordham in the 1999-'00 season.

After graduating from Fordham in 1992, Prioleau played professionally in

the United States Basketball League, Continental Basketball Association, Switzerland, Turkey, and Italy.

Prioleau has worked primarily with guards throughout his career and will do the same at Marquette.

"At this level you have a ready-made product of a player," Prioleau said. "What is important is to fine tune things with the player like reading the pick and roll, reading down screens and working on their decision-making."

After graduating from Marquette this past spring, Todd Townsend had the

opportunity to play pick-up with some of the members of the freshman class.

"Playing pick-up with them just got me excited about the team, and I just

wanted to be around my teammates. They expressed at the same time that they wanted me to be around," Townsend said.

Townsend officially moved from player to coach when Crean hired him as the new director of men's basketball operations.

"You can never say never, but I'm not going to pull a (Michael) Jordan (by

making multiple comebacks)," he said. "This is something I wanted to do after the season."

Townsend has high hopes for the team's new recruits.

"This team is young and you are going to watch them grow very fast. I want

students to have fun watching these guys grow. They are young and expectations are going to be high, but continue to buy into Marquette basketball."

Crean filled out his coaching staff Aug. 8 when he announced the hiring

of Dan Panaggio. Panaggio had spent the last four seasons as an assistant coach for the Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA.

Panaggio peppered his coaching resume with stops in college basketball at the community college and Division I levels and the CBA. He has served as both an assistant and a head coach.

Panaggio's greatest successes at the head coaching level came in 1994 and 1998 when he guided the Quad Cities Thunder to the CBA championship.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on August 29, 2005.