MONTREAT — Basketball had not been a lot of fun for Craig Jackson or the Montreat women’s team in recent years.

Formerly a Division I coach at University of the Pacific, Jackson endured a 5-22 record his last complete season there and resigned after a 1-5 start in 2005-06.

Meanwhile, the Montreat women have finished next-to-last in the Appalachian Athletic Conference for four straight years while averaging five wins per season.

But after their first month together, Jackson and the Cavaliers look like a nice combination. They went into Tuesday’s game needing one win to tie last season’s victory total, and they’ve been competitive in two league losses.

“We’re all just really excited,” sophomore Janel Cox said. “Coach tells us to trust him and good things will happen. ... Our offense is more structured, and so is our defense. We work well in his system, too.”

Junior Whitney Mace, in her third season at Montreat, said: “Coach Jackson knows the game really well. We have set plays, and he makes sure we know what we’re doing. It makes the game fun.”

The decision to get back into coaching was not an easy one for Jackson, who moved to the area when his wife (Brooke Carrigan-Jackson) became an assistant for the Furman women’s team.

He took a job making parts for BMW in South Carolina until accepting the Montreat job, and he now commutes from Travelers Rest, S.C.

“After I left Pacific, I spent some time trying to decide whether I wanted to get back into coaching,” said Jackson, who had a 37-55 overall record and a 36-36 record in league play at Pacific. “The way things ended there weren’t the way I wanted them to end. In my first year, we made it to the Big West (Conference) championship game, and we broke almost every offensive record you could imagine.

“But we were trying to make the step from a mid-major team. ... Budget-wise, we weren’t ready to do that. In retrospect, I probably should have been more patient.”

The idea of returning to the non-NCAA Division I level was intriguing to Jackson.

Since arriving, he’s not been disappointed. Montreat only has eight players on its roster, but the leading scorer is one of Jackson’s first recruits. Junior college transfer Chazaree Wright is averaging 17.1 points per game, including 26 in a seven-point loss to Union College, last year’s tournament champion, on Saturday.

Jackson said his favorite part of coaching the Cavaliers is watching his players have fun.

“One of my first days here, I heard a ball bouncing in the gym,” Jackson said. “It was one of our players (Mace). I couldn’t remember the last time a player had gone in the gym to work on her game on her own time. At the D-I level, everything is so structured. It’s nice to be at a place where athletes enjoy the game so much.”