|
November 13, 2002 SVSU-NU
Basketball Media Day Comments from · Opening statement…"Thank you all for coming here. We appreciate members of the media coming out to this, because this is a nice event and we appreciate it. Thank you to Northwood for hosting this event and giving us an opportunity to get things rolling." · On the GLIAC…"We are excited about our team. There is good news and there is bad news. Good news is that after a tough season last year - sitting a very good player out, starting three freshmen, and playing four freshmen for a good portion of the year - we're going to be better. The bad news is that so will the other teams in the conference. This league is going to be very, very good this year. In our division we have Michigan Tech, who's coming off of a phenomenal year, and you can tell by the voting that a lot of folks think they're going to be pretty good. After that, you have teams voted second to sixth place that are all going to be tough. That is going to make our division very exciting to watch." · On the return of Terrence Wright…"Terrence is a fifth-year senior that we're excited to have back. Last year we red-shirted Terrence for academic reasons, to allow him to concentrate on his engineering degree, and it's been fun to see him practice knowing that he can play. Last year he was at our practices but we didn't gain a lot of solace when our coaching staff would look over there and see a guy that scored 19 points per game and knowing that he wasn't going to play for 26 games. We're enjoying practice a lot more knowing that Terrence can suit up." · On the returnees…"We have a number of returning players so we're hoping that those guys are all a year wiser. After going through last year we hope they just have a little bit more savvy and know what to expect from this great conference. This will be the first time since I've been at SVSU that we have a four-year senior. That has a lot of impact on a team. This year we have Terrence Wright and Cameron Nichols. Cam has done a nice job with how he prepares and competes, as well as his overall leadership. R.J. Hallowell is a senior that has been with us for three years. Jerry Minott is in his second year with us after transferring from Muskegon Community College. Those four guys have been terrific in terms of their internal leadership and what they've been doing for our basketball team. We've got some juniors that will be playing a lot for us. Mo Brown led us in rebounding last year and Ryan Merino has also seen significant playing time for us. Sophomores that are returning are Anthony Parker, who had a very good freshman year, Rojelio Grady, and David Williams. Those guys will be very pivotal to the success of our team." · On the newcomers…"We've brought in two freshman that we think will play in Joel Wood and Marcus Lyons. We have two transfer students - Tim Fralick from Oakland University and Ed Santos, a young man from Saginaw that's been out of basketball for a few years. Tim has given us a dimension of toughness that we've needed and hopefully he's going to be ready for the GLIAC wars coming up. Ed gives us an inside presence and some physicality that we haven't had. We're hoping all these guys can contribute to us, as well." · On the program…"It is certainly going to be a great challenge this year. I look at our team and our program right now and see us as an upstart. We have to prove that we belong and that we can play and compete for a championship. We have good expectations and now we have to show that we can play consistent basketball night in and night out like you have to in order to compete with the good teams in the GLIAC."
Contact: Jeff Bacholzky (989) 790-4053
#### |
