Season Preview: Panthers add toughness in pursuit of championship
With a high-octane offence fueled and ready to go, the UPEI Men’s Basketball Panthers are hoping to capture that elusive Atlantic University Sport (AUS) championship.
For fifth-year coach Tim Kendrick, adding tough, gritty players that fit his style of play may be the answer he’s been looking for.
During his tenure as head coach, Kendrick and the Panthers have finished third three times and second just once—a trend he is hoping will change. A change that begins with the players, he said.
“I think we’re pretty deep, I think we’re fairly tough, and I think we’re athletic and offensively talented.”
In the backcourt, the Panthers added Jake Kendrick, Zachary Usherwood, and first-year guard Amin Suleman out of Toronto, who Kendrick believes is a star in the making. They will help solidify a backcourt that includes Lorenzo Parker and second team all-Canadian, Tyler Scott, who finished second in the country in scoring, averaging 23.9 points per game.
Kendrick’s perimeter-oriented team will look for their offence early and often with an emphasis on taking good shots, reminiscent of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors or the NCAA’s Kentucky Wildcats, Kendrick said.
“We’re not slow and methodical, we want to get up and down. We want to push the basketball and catch defences off guard.”
In the frontcourt, the Panthers used a productive off-season to address their need for more length and physicality. The additions of forwards Dut Dut and Tevin Sutton-Stephenson will make opponents think twice about driving in the paint. They will join European big men Stefan Vujisic and AUS all-rookie Milorad Sedlarevic, along with the athletic Brad States.
“We wanted tougher forwards and I think we accomplished what we set out to do.”
For a team that has no issue scoring, averaging 92.6 points per game in 2014–15, Kendrick and his coaching staff have been developing a defensive scheme two years in the making that caters to the team’s skillset.
“We’ve been researching and looking at different systems. What we’ve done is blended a few things into the system we’re trying to use.”
With the goal to bring a championship to UPEI, Kendrick always keeps an eye on the future, consistently bringing in young talent to help the savvy veterans.
“The expectations here are never low, we want to contend for a title every year. We want to build a program that’s going to be able to sustain itself year after year,” he said. “We reload instead of rebuild.”
And as the season quickly approaches, Kendrick said he cannot think of a better group of men to go into battle with.
“It’s an exciting week for us and we’re ready to go.”
The Panthers play host to the St. Francis Xavier X-Men in their home opener on November 6 at 8 pm at the Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre.
Contributed by Thomas Becker
