It became a daily mantra.

Each morning, even if sleep lingered in his eyes, Meriden resident Brian Mik would spring out of bed at the mere thought: "I'm going to do basketball today."

That had a way of chasing the sleep, even if it did mean going to work.

Mik's "going to do basketball" is no different form your "going to the office." Basketball is work, and a long day's one at that, for the University of Hartford assistant women's basketball coach.

But when you're in your first year of Division I coaching, and in a program that generated instant hoopla with the hiring of head coach Jennifer Rizzotti, work can get busy all it wants. It's hardly boring.

"This past season was great," Mik said last week. "It was a great experience for me. I really wanted to get into college coaching."

Mik, who coached AAU and high school before being hired last year by Hartford, was along for a 14-14 ride that was a six-win improvement over the previous season. The 14 victories fell one shy of a team record.

But what short of pulse does a preseason poll ever take of a team pumped by so much new blood? The Hawks suited up five freshmen this year. the coaching staff was brand new, with former Yale assistant Mimi Walters joining Mik as aide-de-camp. At the head of the outfit was Rizzotti, Connecticut's marquee women's basketball personality after her years at New Fairfield High School, UConn and the New England Blizzard.

Rizzotti says she hired Mik for his experience at the high school and AAU level. He also gave a good vibe: He was confident, Rizzotti said, but also eager to learn and tackle the demands of scouting and recruiting.

"He was the type of guy who was willing to stay late until the job got done," Rizzotti said. "There were no office hours."

"And you need to have people on the staff people can relate with, can have fun with, but also respect," she added. "Brian and Mimi both brought that to the team."

Brand new to college coaching, Rizzotti and Mik learned on the fly with considerable help from Walters, who had spent five years as head coach at Beloit College, a Division III program in Wisconsin.

Perhaps Rizzotti's best coaching aid was the example of her own game. According to Mik, Rizzotti's intense, all-out playing style proved highly contagious among the players at Hartford.

"You could just see it in their eyes," said Mik. "Each time coach Rizzotti stepped on the floor it was all business. A lot of the players started playing just like she did when she was at UConn.

One player who already had that drive was Allison Macca of Southington. The senior overcame a heel injury early in the season to lead the Hawks in steals with 66, which also placed her among conference leaders. Macca, who swung between guard and forward, was second on the team with 5.3 rebounds per game. She also averaged 5.3 points.

"Macca's just a tremendous basketball player and she's also a great kid," said Mik. "We're going to miss her next year, no question about it. Just her work ethic and her hustle on the court and on the bench, cheering for her teammates."

"What Allison brought to the team is kind of irreplaceble," said Rizzotti. "It's something a combination of players will have to do next year."

Macca was one of just two seniors on the team - fellow captain Tiffany Rutledge of Manchester being the other. The Hawks bring back everyone else, including leading scorers Janeka Lopp and Kenitra Johnson, both sophomores, and the starting backcourt of of freshmen Angie Pazzetta and Dorcas Miller.

"We are young. We had five freshmen. At times we played like freshmen. At times we played like seniors and upper classmen, and our record shows it," said Mik.

"We were probably a little too easy on the kids sometimes," said Rizzotti. "That came from wanting to get them in a positive environment and wanting them to like and respect us. I think that allowed them to get away with things. We need to find a better balance."

The search for that balance begins now. After the season-ending loss to Northeastern, most of the Hawks players went to Florida for spring break. It's a temporary vacation. Starting Monday, off-season training starts.

Nor has Mik's job lightened. During the season he'd get to campus before 9 a.m. and go over the day's plan with rizzotti and Walters. What do we know about our next opponent? What do we need to work on in practice?

There was also an eye-numbing amount of video work. As the school's video exchange person, Mik amassed about 150 game tapes of Hartford's opponents. Then there were ticket lists to compile for home games and meal and lodging arrangements for road games.

Now the job shifts to the off-season workouts and recruiting. Much recruting. Along with looking at the state's talent pool, Hartford will scour the Northeast as far south as Washington D.C. This year's team featured four players from Connecticut, five from New Jersey, two from New York, one from Pennsylvania and one from New Hampshire.

Last week, Mik cruised up to Worcester to watch the Massachusetts high school tournament. The next night Walters went to New Jersey for that state's Tournament of Champions.

Then comes AAU season, which is the prime recruiting window for next year's crop of high school seniors. The first weekend in April is a big one on the AAU calendar. In July, there are a string of national tournaments that will take Mik from Texas to Tennessee, from Philadelphia to Washington D.C.

By then, Rizzotti will be back playing with the Houston Comets in the WNBA, so much of the recruiting burden will fall on her assistants.

"The college game is so much different," said Mik. "Division I basketball is a 24-hour-a-day job, if you could work 24 hours in a day. You've got to have a knack for it and like what you're doing, and I do love it."

It's not his only love, though. On June 24, Mik will marry Sarah Lucey of Cheshire. The two have been a couple for more than three years, so Lucey is familiar enough with Mik's basketball life. Then again, she's got one of her own. A former collegiate player at Merrimack, Lucey is Joe Ticotsky's assistant at Cheshire High.

It will probably take the Miks some time to settle into domestic routine. After a one-week honeymoon, Mik will hit the AAU recruiting trail from July 8-31.

"I will be home, but only for a day or two," he said. "It might be tough for the first month, but my fiancee knows my job and the profession I've chosen.