Bas­ket­ball Teams Tip Off Sea­sons

MISHAWAKA—Both the men’s and wom­en’s bas­ket­ball teams have un­der­gone sim­i­lar changes this year, as both teams lost key se­niors and added new staff mem­bers. The wom­en’s team lost two 1,000-point scor­ers in Kelsey Brick­ner and Jes­sica Er­win and added Bran­don Auker to its staff. As for the men’s team, it lost two-time NAIA All-Amer­i­can Tre­Vion Crews and added both Ryan Mc­Daniel and Scott Pols­grove to its staff. 

“We’ve had two scrim­mages so far,” Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball Coach Doug Porter said. “I was happy to see the in­ten­sity and com­pet­i­tive­ness that we played with. We also do seem to have a good num­ber of play­ers that can score. One thing, I was dis­ap­pointed that we did­n’t shoot free throws any bet­ter than we did be­cause I think adapt­ing to a new tempo is some­thing that we will have to ad­just to.”

De­spite hav­ing sim­i­lar trends go­ing into the sea­son, the two teams have dif­fer­ent ex­pec­ta­tions. For the women, the hope is to con­tinue to build a young team into a win­ning pro­gram. The men, on the other hand, are com­ing off an elite eight run in the NAIA Na­tional Tour­na­ment a year ago and are hop­ing to prove that they be­long at the top of the NAIA bas­ket­ball scene.

“Ex­pec­ta­tions for me is con­tin­ual im­prove­ment through­out the year,” Men’s Bas­ket­ball Coach Steve Drabyn said. “To con­tinue to de­velop on the things that we preach. We play fast with lots of player and ball move­ment. A growth mind­set is one of our core val­ues, just try­ing to get bet­ter each and every day.”

De­spite los­ing key se­niors to grad­u­a­tion, both teams added four fresh­men each to the ros­ter. Both coaches are hop­ing that the in­com­ing fresh­men can add mean­ing­ful depth to their squads. For Coach Drabyn’s team,  Bran­don Hunt and Drew Greene are go­ing to be cru­cial play­ers go­ing for­ward. For the women, Coach Porter iden­ti­fied the trio of Ma­iah Shel­ton, Abby Williams and Addi Jones as key team mem­bers. 

“The one thing they add to our team is en­thu­si­asm,” Porter said. “It's one char­ac­ter­is­tic that they bring to the team. We also have some re­ally good ath­leti­cism in this class, and they are very pos­i­tive and up­beat peo­ple. Those char­ac­ter­is­tics have al­ready en­er­gized the en­tire team.”

The other key trend that both teams have go­ing for them is ad­di­tions to their coach­ing staff. Porter added Bran­don Auker to his staff, who has worked on the coach­ing staff of both the Uni­ver­sity of Indy and Lo­ras Col­lege. Drabyn added both Scott Pols­grove and Ryan Mc­Daniel. Mc­Daniel joins the staff as a grad­u­ate as­sis­tant who played col­le­giately at the Uni­ver­sity of Al­abama in Huntsville, and Pols­grove joined as an as­sis­tant coach with over thirty years of coach­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. He even has pre­vi­ous ties with Drabyn, hav­ing given him his start in coach­ing at Kings Col­lege.

“Scott brings a wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence to the staff,” Drabyn said. “He’s been a head coach for thirty-some years, so hav­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence is just awe­some. He gives opin­ions, sug­ges­tions, thoughts, drill and coaches our play­ers well.”

For more in­for­ma­tion about the men’s and wom­en’s bas­ket­ball teams, visit www.bupi­lots.com. As of Oct. 31, the men’s team had won its first two games and the wom­en’s team had won its first three games.PHOTO CAP­TION: The Men’s Bas­ket­ball team warm­ing up for their game against Sim­mons Col­lege of Ken­tucky on Fri­day, Oct. 29, at the Weikamp Ath­letic Cen­ter.