It could have made a beautiful Seinfeld episode.

Picture George Costanza's father pacing the sideline of a basketball game in his thrift store suit when the whistle blows... again. Coach Costanza's face curls into a grimace, his fists thrust to the heavens and a scream rises from his mouth.

"Serenity NOW!"

That simple mantra should be perpetually pursed on the lips of Augusta State basketball coach Dip Metress, who in his third season in the Peach Belt Conference has discovered the wisdom to accept the officiating he cannot change and the courage to alter his own behavior.

"I've been a good boy," Metress said after six games without drawing a technical foul. "I've made a conscientious effort just to do my job and worry about the team more than those guys in the black and white shirts."

Metress has come a long way since his first season with the Jaguars when he rolled up 11 technical fouls in his first 16 games and finished the season with a public reprimand from the conference brass. A year ago he was "T'd up" only five times, but two of those came in one night against USC Upstate and earned him a one-game suspension from Augusta State athletic director Clint Bryant.

It had reached the point where perception was creating a distorted reality that had Metress unfairly lumped into the same behavioral category as NBA bad boy Rasheed Wallace. Let's be honest here. Any casual observer can see that officiating in the Peach Belt Conference is hardly the gold standard of judicial excellence. If Mike Krzyzewski were coaching in the PBC instead of the ACC, he'd never finish a game still on the bench. Bobby Knight wouldn't last past the first whistle.

Metress isn't the first coach to be frustrated by refs who aren't working Rupp Arena for a reason. Gary Tuell before him had plenty of official run-ins. Bryant was no stranger to the technical foul when he coached the Jaguars.

"God knows I got my share," said Bryant, who had Metress as an assistant on his coaching staff. "My wife reminded him that he got a lot of it from me."

However, it was costing the young coach more than the $100 per technical he had to pay his wife, Heather.

"He's real tight with money, so we thought that might work," his wife said.

Instead it was something else Heather Metress said that turned the page: "Let's not let everybody else be right."

"I love the fact that he's excited about coaching, and I didn't want him to change that part of it," Heather said. "I see the side of him that cares so much about the team and the program. We just felt like there was such a focus on him getting technicals and his behavior, and we just want the focus to be about the team. Neither one of us wanted that to be what people were writing about or talking about when it comes to Augusta State. "

That reasoning resonated with Metress and has worked better than the pennies he used to pull from his pocket and toss behind the bench after bad calls or the pink hair bow from his daughter that he'd tie to h is wedding band. He's found serenity in just being himself and doing what he does best - coach basketball.

"The worst thing you can do sometimes is let other people think they know something about you, because they don't," he said. "The big misconception is that because I am animated, that I'm a bad person. I stand up for our players, and anything to do to hurt our team I didn't want to do. I tell my players all the time, 'work on your weaknesses.' I've been trying like crazy to do that this year. I'm not coaching any differently; I'm just mainly focused on our players."

The difference is noticeable and thrills Metress' biggest fan - Bryant.

"He's an excellent basketball coach and really cares about his kids," Bryant said. "I didn't want his behavior with refs to give him a reputation he could never shake. Just focus on the coaching part. Coaches and referees are still going to have their moments. You just can't let that spin you over the edge."

Through six games heading into Saturday night's City Classic with Paine College, Metress has been a model of decorum. More importantly, his team is evolving into one of the best and most exciting Augusta State has ever had. That's all anybody should be focusing on now.

"This team could be special," Bryant said of a squad that is two overtime losses from being undefeated.

That's what anybody who goes to see Augusta State play Paine will realize very quickly. On a young but deep roster that includes players from four continents, Metress has two local kids who make the Jaguars worth watching.

One is 6-foot-11 sophomore center Garret Siler, who could barely play for Richmond Academy but has blossomed into a force to be reckoned with under Metress' tutelage.

"What he has done with Siler is remarkable," Bryant said of a player who now averages more than 13 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocked shots per game.

The other is 6-5 junior forward A.J. Bowman from Washington-Wilkes. Bryant calls Bowman "the human highlight" for his rare ability to take your breath away. Bowman electrifies crowds every night with an array of acrobatic dunks that included a breakaway windmill dunk and an alley-oop tomahawk jam in the Jags' only home game to date against Queens.

"If we were covered by ESPN, some of his highlight dunks are play-of-the-day stuff," Metress said.

"He's a special player and one of the more exciting players to ever play here. That's what people keep telling me."

That's the best kind of animation that Augusta State fans are to be treated to every night.