How good is Dip Metress?

Jaguar men’s basketball coach Dip Metress. (photo by AU Athletics/DCM)

By Justin Gray | Sports writer

Augusta men’s basketball coach Dip Metress is entering year No. 20 on the job and he just keeps getting better with time.

Metress owns a 419-146 record at Augusta which is a .742 winning percentage. His team’s have appeared in the national championship twice, and they have dominated the Peach Belt in his tenure.

On Oct. 20, he took his brand new team down to Statesboro to play Georgia Southern and took down the Eagles with a 82-77 victory. An NCAA D-I win is nothing new to Metress as the Jaguars beat South Carolina in Columbia in 2018. How does he keep taking down these bigger schools with a D-II level basketball team?

He recruits exceptionally well and has been one of the better D-II recruiters in his tenure. He has done even better bringing in transfers, with recent guys like Tyshaun Crawford, who he turned into the Peach Belt Co-Player of the Year, and Ja’Queze Kirby, who is going to be the heartbeat of this current 2023-2024 team.

Another reason that his team’s beat D-I teams is because of how well they are coached. They are disciplined, they never lose their poise, and they continue to play their game no matter what the score is. They never miss a beat and he teaches the leaders how to be leaders.

This year going into this exhibition with Georgia Southern, there were so many question marks surrounding his Jaguars’, especially with only returning six players, but as Metress does, he brought in big-time players to fill bigtime roles.

Metress recruited Maximillian Amadasun, who transferred from St. Bonaventure, at the center position and can take over the game with his size. He’s worked with his point guard, Zyere Edwards, a highly ranked recruit from Savannah, and his shooting guard, Demitri Gardner, and they stepped up and were difference makers in the win over Georgia Southern. It’s a testament to Metress’ coaching when, year after year, you have different guys becoming good players for the Jaguars.

How has a bigger school not caught wind of Metress’ success and tried to hire him? That question I have no answer to. He has won at every level he has coached, not only won, but excelled. Augusta is lucky to still have this level of a coach at the top of their program. As mentioned, it took five years for a D-I to finally schedule the Jaguars again and now it may be longer because no bigger school wants to have a chance to lose in their exhibition matchup.

In my opinion, Metress is one of the all-time greats in D-II basketball, and he is the Augusta program. I think he is just getting started and his best teams are still yet to come.

Augusta basketball will keep growing and getting better.

Contact Justin Gray at jusgray@augusta.edu.