By Bill Koch
The Cincinnati Enquirer

At some schools, first-year head coaches can get away with boldly promising to have a competitive program up and running in three to five years.

Tennessee Tech's Mike Sutton doesn't have that luxury.

Sutton, a former Kentucky assistant and longtime protege of Wildcats coach Tubby Smith, takes over in Cookeville, Tenn., for Jeff Lebo, who left after last season for Chattanooga. He inherits a veteran team that won the Ohio Valley Conference championship last year and returns its top four scorers.

His first assignment: Take his team into Shoemaker Center on Saturday to play the University of Cincinnati, which has won 36 straight home openers. And don't bother telling Sutton how young and depleted UC is.

He's not buying it.

"How many returning players did they have last year, and they ended up being a No.1 seed?" Sutton said.

Sutton, a head coach for the first time at the age of 46, knows what he's up against it, all right, but it might comfort him to realize that a successful, veteran coach like UC's Bob Huggins worries about his season opener, too.

Huggins is especially concerned this year because he's playing Tennessee Tech - a talented, veteran team that he believes will cause problems for the Bearcats.

"We're ready to open up," Huggins said. "But not against them. They're really experienced and their guards are really good. That's a tough opener for us."

Sutton takes over a hungry team still smarting from last year's 70-69 loss to Murray State in the Ohio Valley Conference tournament final. That loss denied the Golden Eagles a spot in the NCAA Tournament, after they had won their second straight regular-season OVC title, and relegated them to the NIT.

The first priority for Sutton, then, is not to build the program, but to take what's already there and squeeze more from it. In other words, get the Golden Eagles to the NCAAs for the first time since 1963.

The rookie coach knows a little about the NCAA Tournament, having worked under UK's Smith for the past eight years. His association with Smith goes back 20 years to when they coached together at Hoke High School in Raeford, N.C.

"I wouldn't be the position I'm in without him," Sutton said of Smith. "He's been a wonderful friend and mentor over the years. He's such a great person. I miss working with him.

"I'm trying to get the kids to play really hard. That's something that Tubby has always been proud of. His teams work extremely hard and play hard. We'll play fast-paced for the most part because I think that's how the game should be played."

Tennessee Tech possesses what every coach covets - a reliable, experienced point guard. For the Golden Eagles, it's 6-4 junior Cameron Crisp, who averaged 12.3 points and 3.6 assists last year and led the league in 3-point shooting (46.2 percent).

"He doesn't turn it over and you can't make him play any faster than what he wants to play or any slower than what he wants to play," Huggins said. "He really does a good job of dictating the tempo they want. He's great at the end of the shot clock at being able to get himself or someone else a shot. You can take away their sets but then they just spread you and break you down."

Tech also features a strong inside player in power forward Damien Kinloch, a transfer from South Carolina who was the OVC Newcomer of the Year last year and a first-team all-conference selection. He averaged 16.1 points and 8.5 rebounds. Brent Jolly, a 92.7 percent free-throw shooter a year ago, gives Sutton another capable scorer.

Fortunately for Sutton, he hasn't had to make drastic changes to the Golden Eagles, which has freed him and his players to concentrate on refining what they already do. They'll run and they'll hoist up plenty of 3s, much as they did last year.

"There a lot of similarities in the way the team played last year and the way I like to see the game played," Sutton said. "The big adjustment is in the way you want things done or different terminologies. But the kids have responded fairly well to that. They want to play and that's what players are supposed to do."