A few stories of note involving Jersey teams and/or programs with MAAC ties that I didn't get around to posting Wednesday, when I was either sifting through APR reports or designing high school track & field pages for The Trentonian:

* Kevin Willard's staff at Seton Hall is complete. Willard formally named Shaheen Holloway, the Pirates' career assists leader, his associate head coach. Holloway also worked for Willard at Iona, and the probability of his return to the Hall certainly didn't hurt Willard's chances of getting the job.

Don McHale, another member of Willard's Iona staff, will also be on the staff at the Hall, as will Chris Pompey, a former assistant at New Mexico State. Willard hired Stephen Sauers as his director of basketball operations and Grant Billmeier and Casey Stanley as basketball operations coordinators.

* In a piece of very good news for the Hall, Adam Zagoria writes the forward Herb Pope is expected to make a full recovery and could be back with the Pirates next season. That means all three of the players who declared eligible for the NBA Draft -- Pope, Jeremy Hazell and Trenton's Jeff Robinson -- should be back next year, making the Hall a viable contender for an NCAA tournament berth.

* Another former MAAC coach -- Iowa's Fran McCaffery --filled out his staff by adding another former Division I head coach: Former Indiana State and James Madison head man Sherman Dillard. Dillard coached the Sycamores from 1994-97 and the Dukes from 1997-2004.

* McCaffery and Co. will try to improve on the Hawkeyes' 2-7 record in the ACC/Big Ten challenge when they play at Wake Forest on Nov. 30.

* As Pete Iorizzo reports, Siena ranked 66th in the country in attendance with an average of 7,853 per game. I am continuously impressed of the degree to which the fans in Albany support the Saints. I'm even more impressed by the fans at Creighton, which drew a preposterous 14,495 per game -- good for 15th in the country.