If you happen to catch a University of Alabama at Birmingham men's basketball game on ESPN, here's a suggestion:

Check out the UAB bench. The Blazers' associate head coach is Donnie Marsh, a name every longtime Franklin & Marshall College basketball fan is well acquainted with.

Marsh, who graduated from F&M in 1979, is the school's leading scorer and inarguably the best player ever to don Diplomat blue and white.

An All-America selection, Marsh led the Dips to the '79 Division III Final Four and was drafted later that year by the Atlanta Hawks in the third round.

After a brief professional playing career, Marsh, 53, has been coaching for three decades.

He's in his fourth season as UAB's associate head coach, coming on board when the university hired Mike Davis; Marsh had been an assistant to Davis at Indiana.

As of last week, UAB was ranked 28th in The Associated Press poll and 30th in the ESPN/USA Today poll. The 18-4 Blazers, tied for second in Conference USA, were in the top 25 a couple of times earlier in the season and got off to the best start in school history.

After making the NIT two years in a row, the team is aiming for an NCAA tournament bid.

Speaking by phone Tuesday evening as he was riding the Blazers' bus en route to Memphis, Marsh said this season has been a pleasant surprise.

UAB was picked to finish 10th in the league, and had lost four 1,000-point scorers, he said.

Still, Marsh said he knew the team had some good players coming back — among them 5-8 junior point guard Aaron Johnson and 6-8 senior forward Howard Crawford. The Blazers also added 6-6 guard Elijah Millsap, a transfer from Lousiana-Lafayette.

Millsap is the brother of Utah Jazz forward Paul Millsap.

The team is getting contributions from others as well, including a couple of graduate students — George Drake and Kenneth Cooper — in their final year of eligibility.

As associate head coach, Marsh is deeply involved in recruiting and also handles the team's defense. In addition, he blogs regularly on the UAB basketball home page (which may not actually be part of his official job description).

Marsh said he's been given free rein to run the defense, "and I appreciate that level of responsibility."

UAB surrenders just 61 points a game, which is second in the conference.

So far this season, the Blazers have racked up some quality wins, beating Cincinnati out of the Big East; Butler, which is ranked 15th in the ESPN/USA Today poll and 23rd in the AP poll; and Arkansas on the road.

UAB held Cincinnati to 47 points and Butler to 57 points.

"We like to create offense off what we do defensively," Marsh said.

"We're at our best in transition," he said. "Our strength is our athleticism."

Marsh said he keeps up to date on his alma mater by checking the F&M basketball Web page; he also recently caught up with his former college coach, Glenn Robinson, by phone.

On a personal note, Marsh and his wife, LaRoyce, are the parents of two children. Son Tyler is a senior at Birmingham-Southern College, where he plays guard on the basketball team, and daughter Sydnee is a high school senior and track star.

Sydnee — who competes in the 200 and 400 meters and various relays — has been accepted at the University of Alabama and may run track in college, her dad said.