Caper Fall Classic Results… Preseason Thoughts… Player Updates

The Caper Fall Classic was a very good event for us. We had to handle some adversity, and we appeared to get better every time out! The SMU game on Thursday afternoon was just what we expected. SMU came into that game undefeated, and we knew they were tough. The first half was a battle. I thought that we played quite well at both ends of the floor, especially the defensive end… but we just couldn't hit shots! We were down 30-26 at the half, and considering how poorly we shot the ball, we felt that we were in a pretty good spot. Unfortunately for us, we continued to struggle shooting the ball, and the Huskies were able to get away from us a bit in the fourth. We had a great team meeting after that game. We talked a lot about not allowing one part of a game to cause frustration in other areas… we talked about playing with confidence! We have not shot particularly well throughout the preseason, and we feel that shooting is one of our strengths! We played our second game of the event against Holland College, certainly one of the very top teams in the CCAA. Our two time All-Canadian Tyler Scott came out of the gate on fire! I think our guys really fed off of his lead, and we went on to play much closer to the way we envisioned ourselves playing. After a 44-17 run that bridged the third and fourth quarters, we had built a comfortable lead on route to a solid win. Our final game was against Thetford Prep. Although a bit younger, this team was big and talented. We had been told that some of their players have all ready received scholarship offers from many NCAA schools such as Florida, Memphis, etc. We came out and played our second consecutive good game. We were pretty solid at both ends, and it felt like we were in control throughout, leading to a 97-76 victory. On another note from this tournament, the St.F.X. X-Men went 3-0, and that is who we open league play against here at home on Nov. 4 and 5!

I think that our preseason was certainly beneficial to us. We finished with an overall record of 5-3, and felt like we were certainly in every game. We knew entering this season that we had to work some of our new pieces into our system, and play with some different combinations in order to get to a comfortable rotation. We have struggled at times, faced some adversity, but all in all… we feel that we are certainly on the right track!

We knew coming into the season that we were going to be without our fifth year senior Lorenzo Parker. Lo is recovering from an ACL injury/surgery that he sustained in the third quarter of the AUS Championship game last March. We have also been without fifth year senior Jake Kendrick and new to our program guard Vishal Banipal for much of the preseason due to injury, illness, etc. We expect to have Vishal back with us soon, perhaps even by the AUS season opener. We expect Lo and Jake back for sure by the second semester, at the latest. Both Lo and Jake are big losses. These two are "glue" guys, they make practices better, they make the locker room better, they bring positive energy to our team… and they both understand how we want/expect to play. We are looking forward to having these three return.

GO PANTHERS GO!