Men’s basketball tries to rebound from past seasons

By Dan Cannataro

The men’s Loyalist basketball team is trying to rebound from a very unsuccessful last couple of seasons.

Last season Loyalist finished 6-14 and ninth in the eastern conference of the OCAA. In the 2009-2110 they finished with an unimpressive four wins in a 20 game schedule.

“Going deep into this season you have to look at perspective, we had a tough year last season but the playoffs are our expectation, “ said coach Rich Whitfield.

The Lancers are under a complete new coaching staff. As the former coach Darrell McGarth was replaced. New coach Whitfield expects his club to go deep in the playoffs and also thinks the Lancers are capable of potentially making it to the nationals.

“I expect we start the season off strong against Fleming but it’s going to be tough because we are missing one of our primary scorers in Matt Miller to injury,” said Calvin Chevannes.

Chevannes led the team in rebounding at 6.3 rebounds per game last year. This is unusual from a small forward/shooting guard but the team is very undersized..

“Sometimes I play the power forward spot as the coach likes to switch it up a lot. In high school shooting guard wasn’t my true position but that obviuosly changed when I came to Loyalist College,” said Chevannes.

To stay competitive the team defense is going to have to be physical.

“We need to execute better than anybody else for us to stay competitive against the more talented teams in the conference,” said coach Whitfield.

“Our school lacks the advantage of having athletic kids, our team is made up of more average players rather than stars,” said Whitfield.

The team defense has to make plays for the offense. The Lancers don’t have the players that run up and down the floor.

“We have to look to slow the game down and run a half court defensive team for us to showcase our strengths on defense,” said Whitfield.

The last couple of years have been very unsatisfying but Chevannes says it’s a new year they have a new coaching staff and a attitude of winning.