The Rizing Fukuoka, who gutted their roster of several prominent bj-league veterans in the offseason, made another big move on Monday.

Head coach James Duncan was relieved of his duties a day after his team defeated the Saitama Broncos twice in their two-game series last weekend. His assistant, Ken Hamanaka, was promoted to head coach.

The 25-year-old Hamanaka becomes the youngest bench boss in bj-league history.

Fukuoka (6-16) is tied with the Shimane Susanoo Magic (6-18) for the fewest wins in the 10-team Western Conference. The Rizing, however, have won four of their past nine games. And with the expanded playoff format this season — eight squads from each conference quality for postseason play — the ninth-place Rizing are only one game back in the hunt for the final playoff spot.

Duncan, a 37-year-old Canadian, took over as head coach last winter, just after the midway point of the season, when Fukuoka, the 2012-13 championship runnerup squad, was 11-17 under Kimitoshi Sano, who had replaced Mack Tuck in the preseason. (Tuck had taken over after coach Atsushi Kanazawa, who led the team to the finals in May 2013, left the club for a coaching gig in the NBDL, the JBL2's successor).

Despite the revolving door of coaches before him, Duncan orchestrated a dramatic turnaround, leading Fukuoka to a 15-9 record to close out the season and a berth in the playoffs for the sixth time in seven seasons.

Reached by The Japan Times on Tuesday, Duncan declined to comment about his departure from the Rizing. His dismissal appears to be a cost-cutting move in a league that often places an emphasis on perpetually trimming the budget in all facets of operations.

After making the playoffs in May, the Rizing didn't re-sign power forward Reggie Warren, one of the league's top frontcourt stars since the 2006-07 season, who moved on to the Kyoto Hannaryz; big man Julius Ashby, who had appeared in the playoffs for the Takamatsu Five Arrows, now-defunct Tokyo Apache, Niigata Albirex BB, Shiga Lakestars and Fukuoka; guard Jun Nakanishi, who joined the Iwate Big Bulls; guard Akitomo Takeno, who was picked up by the Akita Northern Happinets; guard Satoshi Ishitani, who's become a steady contributor for the Aomori Wat's; and guard Masahiro Kano, who's now a backourt backup for the Lakestars.

Duncan became the second bj-league head coach to lose his job this season. Reggie Hanson, a former assistant at the University of Kentucky and JBL star in the 1990s, was let go by Shimane last month.

Hamanaka, a Tokyo native, attended Hawaii Tokai International College before enrolling at West Virginia University and receiving a bachelor's degree in physical education. He worked as a student manager for the WVU men's basketball team for three seasons.

Last season, Hamanaka was an assistant coach for NCAA Division III Lycoming College (undergrad enrollment: 1,400), which is located in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Looking back on what the Rizing accomplished last season, Duncan had this to say in a May interview with this newspaper after the team's ouster from the playoffs: "We pushed ourselves into the playoffs, we went from ninth to fifth and had a chance to finish in third place with the last regular-season games. Then yesterday we were three minutes away from advancing into the next round. ...

"We played extremely hard and we made huge improvement from the time I arrived. They accepted the challenge to play team basketball and trusted each other."