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Cougar pups already wearing a bull's-eye
ICC men's team, with 15 new players, enters new season ranked seventh
November 12, 2008
By Adam Duvall
Reprinted with permission of the Journal Star
But the veteran Illinois Central College men's basketball coach may be more impressed with his freshmen entering the 2008-09 season .
'All of my guards, all of my forwards, all (the freshmen) can play,' said Wysinger, who enters his 10th season. 'We'll be looking for a contribution from all of them.'
Eleven players have left from last season, so Wysinger knows that the 15 new players will be relied heavily Dunlap product Nick Morgan, Manual grad Marious Lobdell and Marcus Acree, a guard from Oak Park, are just a few newcomers that give the Cougars the ability to have a very diverse offense.
'We got a lot of guys that score from a variety of positions,' said Wysinger, whose team enters the season ranked No. 7 in the preseason NJCAA Division II poll. 'We still got some pieces that we're kind of figuring yet.'
Wysinger said being ranked may give his younger players confidence. On the other hand, it almost guarantees the Cougars are going to get every team's best game.
'Being ranked really doesn't do anything, they just know as I told them, it's just a larger target,' he said.
However, the sophomores can't be forgotten.
With preseason first-team all-American Breland McKnight (15.4 points per game last season) sidelined with academic trouble, Jimmy Kuban, Earl Thomas, Kevin Richardson and Derick Boyd will have to pick up the slack.
Those four players return just a shade over 25 points per game.
'If you got a nucleus of guys who have been here and understand what you're doing, that always helps,' Wysinger said.
'(Our sophomores) aren't invaluable though. They make mistakes like everybody else but they do give us some stability. They understand better than the young guys, of course, of what we want to do.'
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