Adam Honig led a balanced Dickinson attack in 2012-13 as the only player who averaged more than 27 minutes per game. Dickinson athletics photo by James Rasp

Seniors Adam Honig and Tucker Landy weren’t around when the Dickinson men’s basketball team won four games in coach Alan Seretti’s first year with the program in 2009-10. However, the duo heard the horror stories of the 16 consecutive losses – some close, others a lot to a little – to start that season and vowed it would not happen again.

While the losing was tough, Seretti knew things would get better and wins would eventually follow. Even as the Red Devils took their lumps during Seretti’s first year, the administration was very supportive. While outsiders saw the many defeats, those associated with the program witnessed steady progress and growth. The Red Devils split their final eight games that year, which included wins over teams that qualified for the Centennial Conference playoffs.

“Our first year at Dickinson was extremely rewarding as we had a great group of guys that wanted to change the direction of the program and had not had much experience previous to that season,” Seretti said. “The guys worked like crazy. The administration led by our athletic director Dr. Poolman, vice president Stephanie Balmer and president Bill Durden were all tremendously supportive and appreciated the value of the process.”

Seretti has more than rewarded their faith in him by leading the Red Devils to an NCAA Tournament appearance, two Centennial Conference championship game appearances and one conference championship. Those early struggles, which now seem like a humorous memory, made last season’s success very rewarding. When Honig and Landy arrived to the scenic Carlisle campus, they had a goal of helping the Red Devils become winners.

Mission accomplished.

“When we came in as freshmen, we wanted to help build the program, turn it around, and make some noise in the Centennial Conference,” Honig said. “We wanted to get a chance to perform on a national stage. We achieved success last year and now we have a chance to achieve excellence this year.”

Landy and Honig, who have helped Dickinson win 49 games during their three years together, made sure to credit last year’s senior class for instilling the values needed to succeed on and off the court. They have passed those lessons of selflessness, defensive intensity, and leadership to the underclassmen.

With four starters returning from last season, the challenge for Dickinson as it enters 2013-14 is to keep the good times rolling and return to the Division III tournament. Dickinson received votes in the D3hoops.com preseason Top 25 poll. The Red Devils enjoyed a memorable season last year, winning a school-best 21 games to finish 21-8 overall. The Devils also broke the school mark for conference wins, finishing second in the Centennial Conference at 13-5.

Dickinson returns its top two scorers from last season in Honig and junior preseason honorable mention All-American Gerry Wixted. Both players earned all-conference honors last season. Wixted ranked fourth in the conference in scoring at 16.5 points per game. In addition to being third in free throw percentage and in the top 10 for rebounding, Wixted blocked 43 shots, tying Mark Copeland’s single-season school mark. Wixted ranks third in career blocks with 82.

A three-time all-Centennial Conference point guard with 1,032 points, Honig averaged 14.5 points per game last season. He has the great ability to make shots in bunches and dominate on the defensive end. Honig burned Marietta for 32 points in the first round of the NCAA tournament last year. Landy is a versatile 6’5 wing who averaged 8.8 points per game. He can create shots for himself and others while also being Dickinson’s best wing defender.

Juniors Steve Collins, Chris Cox and Pete Yingst will also be important pieces for the Red Devils, as will sophomores Brandon Angradi and Ted Hinnenkamp.

Seretti never doubted that he would eventually bring a winning program to the scenic campus in Carlisle. After all, Seretti did the same thing at Penn State-Altoona where he led the Lions to three consecutive Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference Tournament appearances. Penn State Altoona set the school record for wins with 14 in each of his last two seasons and earned the first postseason bid in the history of the program with an invitation to the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament in 2009.

It only took a year for Seretti to work his turnaround magic as the Red Devils have enjoyed three straight winning seasons. Dickinson earned the automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament by knocking off Centennial kingpin Franklin and Marshall in the title game, which was one of the biggest wins in program history. The Red Devils defeated Marietta in the first round of the NCAA tournament in front of a capacity crowd at the Kline Center before having their season ended by Wooster in the second round.

The Devils are using that season-ending defeat as motivation to continue raising the bar of excellence established by Seretti and his staff. That has also helped Dickinson manage the preseason attention they have garnered.

“Our guys have continued to dwell on the final game we played last season (at Wooster) and not the great successes we had before that moment,” Seretti said. “If you are a competitor, you walk away from Ohio disappointed in the result and driven to get another opportunity to compete in a setting like that one. Managing the attention has not been too much of a challenge as F&M is still the calling card program in our league with Gettysburg, Johns Hopkins, Ursinus and Muhlenberg not far behind. We have had a couple competitive years but we have not taken our program to a sustained level of excellence, yet.”

Dickinson will be competing at a high level all season as Seretti loaded up his squad’s non-conference schedule with everybody it seems, but the two-time reigning NBA champion Miami Heat. The Red Devils begin the season Friday against at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in the first round of Wesleyan’s tip-off tournament. MCLA is the preseason favorite in the MASCAC. Other challenges for the Red Devils include perennial Mid-Atlantic powers Catholic (Landmark champion) and Alvernia (MAC Commonwealth champion) along with up-and-coming Juniata. The Red Devils will also play ODAC powers Guilford and Randolph-Macon.

“We are excited about how strong the Centennial Conference will be this season and to prepare for it, we wanted to schedule teams that would really force us to execute and compete every night,” Seretti said. “We really have no choice but to show up and compete for 25 nights this year or we won’t get many positive results.”

While, the Devils are excited with the challenge of proving to everybody that last season wasn’t a one-hit wonder, they’re probably more hyped with the opportunity to play in Landy’s backyard especially since they’ll be treated to a home cooked feast Saturday afternoon following Dickinson’s game against either Coast Guard or Wesleyan. Landy is from Durham, Conn., which is about 30 minutes south of Hartford. The menu for the shindig hasn’t been revealed yet.

“I am expecting my family to fill up half the bleachers,” Landy said. “It’s funny; we’ve been working on trying to get a game at Wesleyan since I’ve been here. So it’s definitely going to be pretty exciting to be playing in a tournament there against some good teams. I know the team is looking forward to playing in New England.”

Pacific Northwest Panthers

SUNY-Old Westbury will play five games in seven days on the other side of the country. Last year's regular season Skyline Conference and ECAC Atlantic Region champions open the season against Linfield College in the Bon Appetite tournament in McMinnville, Oregon on Nov. 16. The next night, the Panthers will play in Portland against Lewis & Clark. Two days later on Nov. 19, Old Westbury heads to Walla Walla, Wash. to compete against Whitman before ending the week in Spokane competing in the Whitworth Classic against the hosts and Puget Sound.

In addition to playing Whitworth, a squad that advanced to the Sweet 16 last season, another highlight of the week is the Panthers will get an opportunity to visit Nike headquarters. Look for players to come home with a boatload of new sneakers and clothes. According to coach Bernard Tomlin, the Panthers were looking for a chance to travel and play against the best teams in the country.

“The first call was to Whitworth,” Tomlin said. “They were looking for teams for their tournament. Then a few days after the agreement with Whitworthwas completed, I saw where Coach Foreman at Lewis & Clark was looking for teams for his tournament. I called him and he was also interested in having us come out. At that point, I was looking for another game because I knew had to stay out west for the week and received a call from Coach Bridgeland of Whitman, which then completed our five-game road trip.”

The Panthers won a program-best 25 games and will be led by All-American guard/forward Tyrik Tucker, who ranked among the top five of the conference in scoring (20.1 points per game), rebounding (8.5 per game) and steals (2.88 per game). Other key returnees include senior forward Andrew Andries, junior guard Omari Trebuse, and junior guard Nat Vaughn. The Panthers were picked second in the Skyline Conference preseason coaches’ poll behind SUNY-Purchase. They were separated by one point.

“We are excited about seeing all the different campuses and experiencing the culture of each of those cities,” Tomlin said. “The players are very excited! We have three freshmen that have been talking about (this trip) all fall. They are asking a lot of questions about the climate and the teams we will face. The exposure against this level of competition is big for our program.”

Splash sisters

The Widener women feature the one of the nation’s best shooting duos this side of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. With their in-the-gym range, Pride senior Jen Egee and junior Joanna Persiano combined to make 118 3-pointers last season, which accounted for 62 percent of the Pride’s made 3-pointers as a team. Despite losing four starters from last season, Egee and Persiano will create headaches for opposing coaches and drive defenders dizzy. Egee is prepared to step up and help the Pride enjoy similar success.

In what may be a scary thought to ponder, Egee spent time with her brothers working on her shooting. Egee earned second team all-Commonwealth Conference after helping Widener advance to the Elite 8 and finish 12th in the final D3hoops.com Top 25 poll. She is Widener's single-season and career 3-point leader with 160. She made 68 last year while Persiano made 50. Junior point guard Ally Ferrucci is the only returning starter and will have fun passing the ball to Egee or Persiano. Ferrucci enters the season with 189 assists.

Pride coach Alisa Kintner also expects solid contributions from Courtney Colella and Kristina Reiter. “We have a lot of kids coming back this season who played significant minutes last year,” Kintner said. “They understand what it takes to be successful.”

Major addition

Already returning one of the elite players in the Mid-Atlantic region in junior Kyra Dayon and coming off of a school record 24-win season, the FDU-Florham women’s basketball program just got a little bit stronger. Sophomore Schalette Brown transferred in from Montclair State and will be immediately eligible. The 5-10 native of Somerset, N.J., was named the NJAC Rookie of the Year after averaging 10.5 points and 7.0 rebounds and helping Montclair State enjoy one of the finest seasons in school history as the Red Hawks went 29-1, captured the NJAC championship and reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. She will team with Dayon, who was a fourth-team D3hoops.com All-American last season. Dayon was named First Team All-Mid-Atlantic Region and Freedom Conference Player of the Year. Dayon is the second All-American in FDU women's basketball history. Dayon averaged 18.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game while shooting 43.4% from the field and 74.0% from the foul line. She also posted 2.6 steals per game and 3.1 assists per outing while playing 35.3 minutes per contest. Dayon led the Devils to their first Freedom Conference tournament championship, and its first NCAA Tournament appearance.

Capital gains

The Capital Athletic Conference will welcome three new members this season: Christopher Newport, Southern Virginia, and Penn State-Harrisburg. The addition of Christopher Newport gives the CAC another major program to compete with St. Mary’s (Md.) on the men’s side and Mary Washington on the women’s side. The Captains were picked second in the CAC men’s basketball preseason poll, while the CNU women are the conference preseason favorites. Both teams participated in last season’s NCAA Division III tournament. The men lost in the second round to Virginia Wesleyan and the women lost in the Elite Eight to eventual national champion DePauw.

Tournament tripping

 Here are a few tournaments that may be worth checking out this weekend if you get an opportunity. The Franklin and Marshall Rotary Tournament opens with a bang Friday night when 18th-ranked Middlebury meets 21st-ranked Alvernia in a showdown between two teams ranked in the preseason D3hoops.com Top 25 poll. Opening games don’t get much better than that. The host Diplomats meet Baruch in the nightcap. Franklin & Marshall received 12 votes in the preseason poll. Another interesting matchup comes in the first round of Widener’s tip-off tournament when Delaware Valley battles Rowan.

Delaware Valley, which also received votes in the preseason poll, has won two of the last three Freedom Conference championships. The Aggies are tied for second out of eight teams in the preseason coaches' poll with Misericordia. DeSales was picked as the Freedom favorite. In Baltimore at the Johns Hopkins tournament, Wesley, which won 20 games last year, takes on Mount St. Mary, a team that won 19 games Friday night. Mount St. Mary’s was picked to finish third in the Skyline Conference.

Meanwhile, Wesley ended its season with consecutive 79-78 losses to St. Mary’s (Md.) in the CAC title game and Williams in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

On the women’s side, one of the better opening night matchups features Montclair State, ranked No. 6 in the D3hoops.com Top 25 poll, battling perennial power Scranton in the Gwynedd-Mercy tournament. Both teams participated in the NCAA Division III tournament last year. It may be hard to see Moravian unless you have already purchased plane tickets or gassed up the mini-van to see the Greyhounds in the Lone Star state as they open against Trinity (Texas), another team that played in the NCAA tournament last season.

Mid-Atlantic’s most successful

A huge cap-tip to DeSales’ Sports Information Director B.J. Spigelmyer for providing the following lists of the top 10 winningest programs in the Mid-Atlantic Region over the last decade. Here are men’s top 10 since the start of the 2002-03 season: DeSales (209 wins), Franklin & Marshall (205), PSU-Behrend (204), Catholic (199), Alvernia (188), Scranton (185), Gwynedd-Mercy (185), Cabrini (183), St. Marys, Md (183) and Lycoming (166). On the women’s side, the top 10 are Messiah (242), Scranton (237), Muhlenberg (206), Gwynedd-Mercy (204), DeSales (199), Moravian (198), Washington & Jefferson (195), Lebanon Valley (194), Johns Hopkins (184), Catholic (177) and York, Pa (177). If anybody has a list like this for the Atlantic Region, I would greatly take it.

Help me

This column will only be as good as your submissions and assistance during the year. Feel free to send any noteworthy items, potential feature ideas, upcoming milestones, point out mistakes, say hello, etc. to me at rob.knox@d3sports.com. Don’t worry about overwhelming my inbox. As a former SID, the more in-box traffic, the better. Also, follow me on twitter @knoxrob1.