In the past week, head coach Rob Murphy has announced the addition of two members to the Eastern Michigan University men’s basketball team. Jake Presutti will serve as the Director of Player Development and award-winning sports writer Victoria Sun joins the Eagles as the Director of Basketball Operations.
Presutti earned his bachelor’s in child and family studies as well as a master’s in instructional design, development and evaluation at Syracuse University. He started his collegiate career as a walk-on before earning a scholarship his senior year.
Before coming to EMU, Presutti worked as an assistant in basketball operations for the NBA’s Houston Rockets. His duties included video breakdown and reports on all college and international draft eligible prospects as well as NBA trade targets.
Presutti has also worked as a support staff member in numerous national basketball trials from 2007-09. He worked at the USA Basketball World University Games and the USA Basketball U-19 trials. He also worked as the video coordinator for the Canadian Men’s National Team in the FIBA Americas in 2009.
While earning his master’s degree, Presutti served as a men’s basketball manager for Syracuse University in the 2009-10 season. At SU he worked closely with the coaching staff on opponent scouting reports, opponent film breakdown, assisting in practice sessions, as well as assisting in preseason and postseason strength and conditioning.
The 25-year-old Belmont, NY native graduated from Genesse Valley High School in 2004. While in high school he played soccer, basketball and baseball as a prep. He won several awards in his basketball playing career, being named the 2004 Great Eight League Player of the Year, the 2004 Big 30 Player of the Year, was a third-team All-State selection and the 2004 Section V Most Valuable Player. His high school was the 2002, 2003 and 2004 Section V basketball champions and the soccer and baseball teams were Section V champions in 2003.
Sun joins the Eagles’ staff after nearly 15 years as a journalist. She was a member of the United States Basketball Writers Association and a contributor to Lindy’s preseason college basketball magazine as well as the Basketball Times.
Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the Associated Press, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and, most recently, Fox Sports West television. She previously worked as a journalist for the Cincinnati Post, the Las Vegas Sun, the Riverside Press-Enterprise and the Desert Sun.
In addition to these positions, Sun worked as an official basketball statistics keeper for several Fox Sports television affiliates, covered the University of Kentucky, Xavier University and the UNLV men’s basketball programs and also wrote a golf and tennis column.
The Hong Kong native graduated from SU was raised in Los Angeles where she attended South High School in Torrence, California. During her high school tenure she played varsity tennis for three years along with keeping statistic’s for the boys’ basketball team. As a senior, Sun reached the California Interscholastic Federation (C.I.F.) tennis quarterfinals in doubles.
Sun then moved to New York where she attended SU and graduated with her bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1997. While at SU she played on the women’s tennis team from 1993-95. During those years she also served as a manager for the men’s basketball team as well as an office assistant. She spent the past four summers helping organize and manage several boys’ AAU basketball tournaments in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
