Young horses ready to gallop
UNIVERSITY BASKETBALL: Mustangs men
The standard for being called young now belongs to the Western Mustangs men's basketball team.
"I've never had a team this young, never," said coach Brad Campbell. "We were looking at some young teams around the country but we are the youngest average-age team in the country."
No argument there. The Mustangs have eight first-year and three second-year players on the roster. Their most experienced player is fifth-year guard Ryan Barbeau, followed by third-year man Adam Jespersen. But in terms of experience, Jespersen has missed a lot of time through injury, sitting out most of last year with hand and wrist woes.
This season hasn't started any better for the 6-foot-8 forward. He is waiting an assessment on a knee injury. It isn't expected to be serious but it will take him out of action for at least two weeks.
Missing Jespersen not only hurts in terms of experience but also size. He's the Mustangs' tallest player.
Garrett Olexiuk, who would have been a fifth-year player and one of the team's best, wasn't able to come back from knee injuries he sustained last year.
"He was hoping he could do something if he took the summer off," Campbell said. "He held out some hope but in September he made the decision to call it quits."
The jump from high school basketball to university ball is enormous. Even with talented young players, it is going to take a while to adjust to the play.
"I think our young kids are phenomenal in terms of work ethic, enthusiasm and some ability to play at the CIS level," Campbell said. "Some things need to be cleaned up and instead of being one dimensional you need another dimension and some of that is going to come with work and experience.
"We like this group and when it matures it's going to be very good. Right now, we are in a situation where we are beating ourselves a little too much."
Traditionally, the Mustangs have been a team that generates a great deal of their offence down low in the key. But this year's version of the Mustangs doesn't have much size, although they are a little bigger than they would be normally at the guard position.
Campbell is especially happy with three members of his recruiting class, six-foot guard Jermaine Bernard out of Toronto and 6-foot-4 guard Ryan Higgins from Fergus and 6-foot-3 forward Greg Morrow from Banting. Morrow, however, is suffering from a sore back.
The good news is his second-year returners got a lot of playing time last year, led by Quinn Henderson, Nathan DiLoreto and Peter Scholtes.
The bad news is that the young players will get a lot of playing time.
"There's going to be some rough times," Campbell said. It's also going to change the way he coaches. "It entirely changes. Each season, every new team has its own challenges and way you have to coach. We're taking it very slow. In a normal year, we'd have a lot more offensive systems and options, defensively as well. There's just been an incredible amount of teaching. Teaching is going to go on a lot longer than normal."
The Mustangs open their regular season Friday at 8 p.m. against York Lions at Alumni Hall.
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