Yessir, Billy Lange is now signed through 2012-2013. Some might have described Coach Lange’s hiring as “Gladchuk’s Folly” a few years ago, but he has now produced a winning season, and for that our esteemed coach has been rewarded. Some of you might feel that one season of mild success isn’t enough to warrant a 5-year extension, but I say this is a good move. Practically speaking, it’s important for recruiting purposes. Coach Lange was heading into the final year of his contract. It’s hard to convince anyone of the stability of your program when it isn’t even contractually assured that you’ll be around the next season. Still, Navy fans don’t want another Charlie Weatherbie situation. Weatherbie used his success in 1996 to sign a 10-year contract, but the football program tanked soon afterwards. Navy was stuck paying their former coach for 5 years after he was fired. Naturally, we don’t want the same situation with our basketball coach. But the terms of the contract haven’t been released, so we don’t really know if we’ll be stuck should things go south. (Besides, we already were in that situation with our basketball coach. Don DeVoe was still on the payroll last year.)

I don’t think that we need to worry about that, anyway. Navy basketball has, in my opinion, turned the corner. Over the last few years, Navy wins came when the team had some abnormally high 3-point percentage. They seemed almost flukish. That wasn’t the case this year, especially once the Patriot League season started. The Mids hit 3-pointers at times, but in other games they won by generating steals and getting to the free throw line. By midseason, there was more to this team than just long-range shooting. The team and the coach matured before our eyes. By the time we lost to Howard, I had finally jumped off the Billy Lange bandwagon. I was wrong. I am confident that this year wasn’t a fluke.

Sneaky! Stan Brock has a new offense, but don’t tell anybody! The Army head coach revealed that the coaches’ “retreat” was over, and a new offense is at hand. Just what that offense consists of, he isn’t saying:

“I’m trying to keep it wrapped up for as long as I can,” Brock said. “As long as I do, my opponents don’t know what we are running.”

You mean “opponent,” Stan, because as soon as you play your first game, everyone’s going to know what your offense looks like. What, exactly, is he hoping to accomplish? To try to pull a fast one on Temple? It isn’t like there won’t be reports all over the internet and in the papers anyway once practice starts.What a gong show. Coach Brock needs to be telling anyone who will listen all about the new offense. Give downtrodden Army fans something to be excited about. Generate a little buzz about the the program. This is one of those times when the AD should pull the coach aside, tell him “tough luck,” and start a marketing campaign all about the new-look Army football team. You might gain yourself an advantage for the first half of your season opener, Coach, but that’s hardly worth it in the big picture.

Scheduling update: Mid-American Conference schedules have been released, and two of Navy’s games against MAC opponents have been moved to weeknights. The Ball State game was moved ahead to a Thursday Friday night and will be shown on ESPN. Navy’s trip to Northern Illinois was moved back a couple of days and will now be played on Tuesday night and shown on ESPN2. Ah, November night games in Illinois. Toasty! Anyway, it will be nice to have a Navy game going on in the background of one of ESPN’s local eatery reports and midweek previews of BCS conference games to be played over the weekend.

Shameless solicitation: Good news for people in a generous mood, but unsure of what to do with all of that good will! You can support my March of Dimes walk!