Matt Brady says he's anxious to hit the Convocation Center floor Thursday morning with his new team. If it wasn't for Wednesday's press conference on that very floor, he might have been out there already.

JMU formally introduced Brady as its new men's basketball coach on Wednesday. He takes over a team that has suffered through eight straight losing seasons. And he doesn't plan on wasting any time changing that.

"I want to win next year," says Brady to the crowd of fans and administrators who gathered at the Convocation Center. "And I think that there's enough here than we can win next year."

"Part of what we talk about all the time is, 'Are our teams and are the individuals getting better? Are they making progress?' comments JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne. "He's clearly done that everywhere he's been."

Brady comes to JMU after four years at Marist. He led the team to 73 wins in that time, including the school's first ever postseason win. Brady said that, before being approached by the Dukes, he wasn't in a hurry to leave.

He says, "But when I looked at this, and saw what they had coming back, and what I could potentially do in recruiting, and I think with the strengths that I had, I looked at this as an opportunity, as a great opportunity to have a winning program."

Now it's Brady's job to succeed where Dean Keener failed. And Brady has some lofty goals, literally.

"My grand plan is to hang another banner," says Brady to the crowd, pointing to the Convocation Center rafters.

"We want to be in the NCAA's. We want to be able to go to the NIT," says Bourne. "And there's really no reason why we can't be there."

"And how soon that happens, I don't know," says Brady. "But that's my greatest expectation, my greatest hope, and we'll see how quickly that can happen."