The unnamed player was deemed to be in his fifth year of varsity competition, although prior to his junior season at Barrie his former school's athletics director said he had two years of eligibility remaining.

PVAC president Tom O'Mara suspended Barrie for the remainder last season (forcing them to forfeit every league game) and all of this year. The squad was also barred from last year's conference tournament. Those decisions dropped the team's record from 19-9 to 6-19 overall and from 13-1 to 0-14 in the league.

The squad took another hit last summer when coach Darnell Myers, who guided the team to its lone PVAC title in 2001-02, resigned. He left, citing a difference in opinion with school officials regarding the future direction of the program.

Now the good news: the hiring of Jack Mitchell, who brings loads of high school and college coaching experience to the reeling program. He was an assistant coach at Gonzaga, McNamara, Ireton, Good Counsel at the high school level and in college at the U.S. Naval Academy.

"I was looking for an opportunity to get involved in coaching at a high school that places a great emphasis on academics and a great emphasis on building and expanding on the athletic program," Mitchell said. "Barrie met that criteria [so] it was a good fit for me."

Mitchell inherits what he deemed "an extremely young" squad that lacks the superstars -- Frank Mason and Josh Colwell -- that have carried the team the past few seasons.

But the Mustangs do return 6-foot senior point guard Brandon Johnson, a possible star-in-the-making, who earned Co-Most Valuable Player honors at the recent Barrie Turkey Shootout. He led the squad in scoring in both games, guiding Barrie to a second-place finish.

Joining Johnson are junior power forward Eli Sach (6-1), senior forward Jeff Cannon (6-3), sophomore small forward Jeff Whitaker (6-2) and sophomore shooting guard Eric White (6-1). Cannon was an all-tournament team selection after scoring a career-high 14 points against Georgetown Day, a 45-35 semifinal win. He also was the team's top rebounder during the tournament.

"We anticipate we'll take some lumps, bumps and bruises early on," Mitchell said. "We're starting two sophomores, and a freshman and two sophomores come off the bench. The youth of our program are our future. We have to continue to learn and take on the challenges. We want to get better week by week."

Mitchell's squad will look to get out on the break when it can but rely mostly on a disciplined half-court offense. Defensively, those young Mustangs will play an aggressive man-to-man set.

"I think we will be competitive in our schedule," Mitchell said. "Obviously, we're looking to the future. We want to learn lessons each game. All of the players are really buying into the new system. They're being open-minded."