Expectations high at the Mount as basketball practice begins
EMMITSBURG — With most of its team intact from last season, Mount St. Mary’s will begin the season in a little more than two weeks under heightened expectations.
On Monday, the men’s basketball coaches in the Northeast Conference picked the Mountaineers to win the league, marking the fifth time they have been tabbed as the favorite and the first since the 2009-10 season.
Never being one to put much stock in preseason polls, coach Jamion Christian said the poll made for “an exciting day” for the Mount program but dismissed it as being little more than “a nice footnote for the beginning of our season.”
“I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing if people think you have a good team,” he said.
The Mountaineers received six of the 10 first-place votes from the coaches to trump defending NEC champion Robert Morris, which was picked to finish second. Bryant, which received one first-place vote, was picked third.
Quite often, the team that is picked to win the NEC does not win the league. The only time the Mount won the NEC tournament as the preseason league favorite was the 1998-99 season.
But, nonetheless, there are legitimate reasons for optimism.
Every key contributor from last season returns except center Kristijan Krajina, who graduated, and forward Andrew Smeathers, who left the school and is no longer playing basketball in an official capacity due to injury. Smeathers had transferred to the Mount from Butler in January 2014.
Byron Ashe, the team’s leading scorer from last season, is back, and so is leading rebounder Gregory Graves. Ashe and Graves were named to the preseason All-NEC team Monday.
“It’s always nice to be noticed by other people,” Ashe said.
As much experience as the Mountaineers have almost two years removed from winning the NEC title and reaching the NCAA tournament, Graves, 7-foot center Taylor Danaher and reserve guard Liam McManimon are the only seniors on the team.
Ashe, forward Will Miller and guard Khalid Nwandu, one of the best defenders on the team, are the only juniors on the roster who will play since Greg Alexander, a transfer from East Carolina, must sit out this season due to NCAA rules.
With a good group of freshmen and sophomores, Christian thinks he’ll be able to utilize the 10-deep rotation he prefers.
The team is pretty small physically. After Danaher, redshirt freshman Troy Henderson is the tallest player on the team at 6-9. So, to have a better chance to compete for rebounds, Christian scaled back the team’s conditioning program and emphasized work in the weight room to pack some pounds on his players.
Still, the roster is very much to his liking. Of the 15 players listed on it, six are listed between 6-6 and 6-9. Those long, athletic players are well-suited for his uptempo, “mayhem” style of play.
“I think we are just scratching the surface for the first time of what we want to be able to do,” Christian said. “We have enough guys who can handle the ball now that we should be able to play that exciting, [high-scoring] style that we love.”
The Mount opens the season on Nov. 13 at Maryland.
Notes:
The Mountaineers received six of the 10 first-place votes from the coaches to trump defending NEC champion Robert Morris, which was picked to finish second. Bryant, which received one first-place vote, was picked third.
Quite often, the team that is picked to win the NEC does not win the league. The only time the Mount won the NEC tournament as the preseason league favorite was the 1998-99 season.
But, nonetheless, there are legitimate reasons for optimism.
Every key contributor from last season returns except center Kristijan Krajina, who graduated, and forward Andrew Smeathers, who left the school and is no longer playing basketball in an official capacity due to injury. Smeathers had transferred to the Mount from Butler in January 2014.
Byron Ashe, the team’s leading scorer from last season, is back, and so is leading rebounder Gregory Graves. Ashe and Graves were named to the preseason All-NEC team Monday.
“It’s always nice to be noticed by other people,” Ashe said.
As much experience as the Mountaineers have almost two years removed from winning the NEC title and reaching the NCAA tournament, Graves, 7-foot center Taylor Danaher and reserve guard Liam McManimon are the only seniors on the team.
Ashe, forward Will Miller and guard Khalid Nwandu, one of the best defenders on the team, are the only juniors on the roster who will play since Greg Alexander, a transfer from East Carolina, must sit out this season due to NCAA rules.
With a good group of freshmen and sophomores, Christian thinks he’ll be able to utilize the 10-deep rotation he prefers.
The team is pretty small physically. After Danaher, redshirt freshman Troy Henderson is the tallest player on the team at 6-9. So, to have a better chance to compete for rebounds, Christian scaled back the team’s conditioning program and emphasized work in the weight room to pack some pounds on his players.
Still, the roster is very much to his liking. Of the 15 players listed on it, six are listed between 6-6 and 6-9. Those long, athletic players are well-suited for his uptempo, “mayhem” style of play.
“I think we are just scratching the surface for the first time of what we want to be able to do,” Christian said. “We have enough guys who can handle the ball now that we should be able to play that exciting, [high-scoring] style that we love.”
The Mount opens the season on Nov. 13 at Maryland.
Notes:
Mount St. Mary’s will host a pair of scrimmages next week against Hood and Randolph-Macon. They are the first scrimmages of Christian’s head coaching career and the school’s first since 2003. Christian hopes the scrimmage with Division III Hood becomes an annual event as a way to pump up basketball in Frederick County. The first installment will take place at 7 p.m. next Tuesday at Knott Arena. The Mount will be accepting donations for Relay for Life to help fight cancer. The scrimmage with Randolph-Macon will be at 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. The Mount will be accepting canned-food donations to support the Frederick Rescue Mission. Admission to both scrimmages is free.
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