by PointGuard » Tue Apr 06, 2021 3:57 pm
Coaches’ Outlooks as 2032-2033 Season Nears:
Ramon Montez, Alcorn State Braves: As an Independent in my first season with Alcorn State, we were 8-7 against Division I opponents which was good enough to get us promoted to Conference V. Last year in the Braves first season in Conference V we won 9 and lost 7 in the conference which put us into a 5-way tie for 5th place. Our season record was 14-14. So we’re one game over .500 during my first 2 years at Alcorn State. We’re picked to finish 6th in the conference this season, but I sure would like to finish in the top 4 so we could move up to a new conference. Our strength is up front while our guards are not that strong this year. SF Benjamin Delk and PF James Roberts ae the core for out team. Delk started 95% of our games as a freshman and sophomore and is a solid player. Roberts hasn’t started any for us but he’s come in off the bench to be very productive offensively so I expect he will be even better as a starter this season. We’re going with Gabriel Atwood, a freshman, to start at C. He has looked good in practice. Guards Kyle Rose and Nick Gervin have been used sparingly in my first 2 years here, so they’re going to experience a lot of pressure this year. I like SF Tony Fife as our 6th man. Our pre-conference schedule is touch. We start by taking on Gonzaga and then have a number of other strong teams to go up against. But that should prepare us well for conference play.
Terry Morillo, Dixie State Trailblazers: We improved from 4-11 in my first year here to 7-8 last season. We need to improve further so we can be promoted from being an Independent to being in a Conference. We’re very deep at guard positions. Jerry McCutcheon has been our scoring leader both seasons at SG. While we have some very solid natural PG’s, I plan to start Joel Knight, who considered himself a SG when he came to Dixie State, but has played mostly at PG the past two season, starting 2/3 of our games there. We have 3 good size PG’s (6’4” to 6’5”) who will can come off the bench to play either the 1 or 2. Chad Bain started a few games at SF as a freshman and played well, but then sustained an injury last season so played little. At PF, Greg Linney has started every game during my 2 years here and is a good scorer and strong rebounder. There’s competition to start at C. At this point I against big-time programs: Georgia Tech, Miami (FL), and Arizona State and just 4 of our 15 Division I games so that’s another big negative on our winning enough to get promoted.
Ken Yamoto, Tarleton State Texans: We’ve had two rough seasons, winning just 5 of our 30 games. It’s tough building a basketball program in a small town in southwest Utah. Time to turn things around and surprise people. We have a better schedule this season with almost as many home games and away games. PG Mark Jordan is probably our most talented player. He started all games during his freshman and sophomore seasons the past 2 years. Senior SG Simon Brown gets his chance to be a starter this year. Mark Pryor has improved significantly every year. This season he’ll start at SF. Brett McCoy started last year at PF, played very well, so will be starting for us again this season. C Tyson Chambers had a similar season to McCoy last year and will repeat as a starter this season. We don’t have a lot of depth, so need to stay injury-free.
Mike McMillan, Maryland-Eastern Shore Hawks: I’m really excited about our team making it into Conference V after last season. We improved from 6-9 the first year I was coaching here to 8-7 last season and hope to see further improvement this season. Midway through preconference play this year we have 3 straight road games against the likes of Stanford, Iowa State, and Vanderbilt…no bed of roses for us. The main thing is to get prepared to play well once conference play starts. Roby Ford is a senior who played very well coming off the bench for me the past two seasons, but will be our starter at C this year and could very well be our team leader. PF Pete Dennis had a limited role for us the first 2 years I was here, but I think while he likely won’t be a star, should be solid for us in a starting role. We have 3 good point guards, but it looks to me like David Bradley, who was our starter last season, should prevail against the competition to start at PG. At SG Chris Seals looks like he’s ready to go from a lightly-used sub to being our starter in his senior season for us. And at SF we’ll have freshman standout Junior Sarchet starting. So who’s our best player coming off the bench? I’d say C Mike House who played well for us last season.
Dontell Spencer, Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions: Our strength this season should be from our big men. PF Dexter Thorne started for the Golden Lions the first year I was head coach, then played a backup role last seasons but handled that well, and now is ready to move back into the starting lineup. At C will be Imari McDonald who did a heckuva job for us starting for us last season. David Brown and Marcus Huld look like they will share starting at SF. Danny Logie, coming to us this year as a JC transfer where he played SF, will start at SG. Logie has played extremely well during practice. At PG, Milton Cox has been our starter the last 2 seasons and played extremely well so will be our court leader again this year. I would like a deeper bench that we will have, but you gotta do with what you have. We improved from a 6-10 record the first year I was coaching to 9-7 last year with a berth in the NIT last year. I’m focused on getting us up into Conference V after this year. We’re going to have to really play hard since we only have 4 home games while there are 11 away games.
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