If you need a primer on who’s running the show in the NBA these days, you might want to thumb through your old USD yearbook. Some of the top jobs in pro basketball are held by former Toreros, who are at the helm of organizations from coast to coast. Here’s the roster:

• Bernie Bickerstaff ’68 is head coach and general manager of the Charlotte Bobcats. He previously held down head coaching jobs at Seattle, Denver and Washington.
• He became the youngest head coach in NBA history, with the Golden State Warriors, and now Eric Musselman ’87 is an assistant coach with the Memphis Grizzlies. His resume also includes assistant coaching stints with Atlanta, Orlando and Minnesota.
• This season marks the debut of Michael Brown ’93 as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Brown, who also was an associate head coach for the Indiana Pacers and an assistant coach with San Antonio, Washington and Denver, immediately hired Hank Egan, who skippered the USD men’s basketball team from 1984 to 1994, as an assistant.
• Chris Grant ’94 is vice president of basketball operations and assistant general manager for the Atlanta Hawks. He’s joined in Atlanta by David Fizale ’96, an assitant coach.
• Neal Meyer ’94 is an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers.
• James Borrego ’01 is the video coordinator for the San Antonio Spurs.

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Title Shot

Last spring, Pierrick Ysern told USD Magazine that to move into the upper echelon of college tennis players, he needed to conquer the mental side of the game. He clearly succeeded in getting his head on straight, because he came within a hair of capturing the 2005 NCAA national singles championship in May. After winning 13 straight matches to finish the season with a 26-6 record, Ysern became the first USD men’s tennis player to advance to the national championship, where he faced Baylor’s Benedikt Dorsch, the tournament’s top seed. Dorsch played almost flawlessly, taking the hard fought title match, 6-2, 7-6. Ysern, a junior, is back this year to make another run at the title.