John Moseley has heard the stories about Lincoln's glory days in the 1960s and 1970s.
And while he embraces that history, the North Carolina native is also well aware of the program's struggles in more recent decades.
As he enters his first year as the men's basketball coach, Moseley is committed to getting the Blue Tigers back to a high level.
Call him crazy? Moseley expects that.
"I know it's been a little while since they've had success, but if I didn't feel like we could get back to that point, I never would have come out here," Moseley said last week.
"We want to point things in the right direction and get Lincoln back in a position where we're at the top of the (Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association), competing for conference championships and NCAA berths."
Moseley, who was hired in April, came to Lincoln from North Carolina Central University, where he served as the associate head coach the past three seasons.
While he hasn't been a head coach at the college level before, the 1998 East Carolina University graduate has 10 years of experience at the Division I level.
Turning around a program that went 3-24 last season and hasn't had a winning record since 2001 might be Moseley's biggest test yet.
"I didn't expect for it to be easy," he said. "I understand the challenge that was here.
"The only approach I know is to roll up your sleeves and work as hard as you can every day and ask yourself at the end of the day if you did anything to make the program better, to make yourself better."
Moseley has spent the early part of his time at Lincoln getting to know the players returning from last year's team. He quickly found out they're ready to turn the corner.
"They're tired of being at the bottom (of the MIAA)," Moseley said. "Now the big thing is getting them to understand how hard you've got to work to make that change.
"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten - a famous cliché, and it's always true."
Aside from evaluating the skill level of his current players during a two-week individual training session allotted by the NCAA, Moseley and his newly established coaching staff have been diligently hitting the recruiting trail.
For Moseley, a big part of that has been connecting with high-school coaches from across the state to "open those lines of communication" and perhaps open some doors that haven't been explored yet.
But he's not limiting the search to Missouri.
"We're at a place right now as a program where we have to be very diligent and look through everything we receive and follow up with every phone call, every lead," Moseley said.
With the season less than four months away, Moseley is targeting Division I transfers and junior college players who are ready to make an immediate impact on this year's team.
"I promised the seniors here I'm not just going to waste the first season and use the excuse, "Hey coach, it's your first year - we don't really expect much out of you,'" Moseley said. "I owe it to those guys to give them the best senior year possible, so we're going to recruit the best players we feel can make that happen."
That doesn't mean Moseley is staying away from the high-school ranks forever.
"I'd like to get the program to a point where we're able to take young guys and either redshirt them or let them play some as freshmen and give them time to develop," Moseley said. "With where we are as a program now, our first high-school signee will probably be from the Class of 2015."
Moseley plans on signing five players before classes start in August, meaning recruiting will be his main emphasis until then.
Still, that hasn't stopped the first-year coach from getting involved with the community. Moseley and the Lincoln coaching staff held a youth camp last week, where they taught the fundamentals of the game and tried to get campers excited about Lincoln basketball.
"We want people in Jefferson City and the surrounding communities to come out to our games," Moseley said. "We want to put people in the seats and get people excited about it."