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Leopards lose first at home, 91-89

Junior guard/forward Chad Duggins makes a two point jumpshot over center Terence Wilborn and guard Cezar Cezar to add to his final 16 points during last Tuesday's pre-season game against Southern California College. SCC outscored La Verne, 91-89. / photo by Summer Herndon
Junior guard/forward Chad Duggins makes a two point jumpshot over center Terence Wilborn and guard Cezar Cezar to add to his final 16 points during last Tuesday’s pre-season game against Southern California College. SCC outscored La Verne, 91-89. / photo by Summer Herndon

by Danny Eckardt
Staff Writer

As the University of La Verne men’s basketball team prepares for the upcoming season, third year head coach Terry Boesel seeks to improve on last year’s uneventful performances. Boesel will have the pleasure of coaching seven returning players, and a team whose strongest aspect is “depth.”

“It is nice for those guys [the returning players] to return, to give you that continuity from year to year,” said Boesel. “They [the returning players] know what to do, and they will help the new players and the coaching staff.”

Last year the Leopards fell well short of the .500 mark in both SCIAC (5-9) and overall (10-15) standings. This year optimism and confidence among the players is high.

“The team goal is to win conference and be better than a .500 record,” said first year shooting guard Ken Cauley. “We are going to be an exiting team to watch this year because of our defense and our transition offense.”

The Leopards returning players consist of junior forward Eric Noyes (a member of the National Association of Basketball coaches, and last year’s assist leader with 83), senior guard/forward Chris Moreland, senior guard Gabe Duran, junior guard/forward Chad Duggins (last year’s leading scorer with 361 points), sophomore guard Cameron Chappell, senior guard Paul Celaya, and senior forward Ivan Battle.

“We have a lot of guys out there working hard, and if that continues I say we will be OK,” said Battle.

Boesel began tryouts with 33 players, but had to make cuts in order to formulate a 17 man roster. This roster features five new players, including junior guard Ryan Burchfield, freshman forward Kevin Gustafson, junior forward Chad Wells, junior guard Jared Wells and Cauley.

“They [the new players] become important because the system we are going to play will require us to play a lot of people,” said Boesel.

Ten of the 17 players on the roster are juniors, which brings an added and much needed sense of experience to this year’s team. La Verne lost two of the top five scorers from last year’s team, which included Scott Fitzgerald, Ducey Award winner, and Dale Schroeder.

Every year the Ducey Award is given to a basketball player who has demonstrated leadership, integrity, and a high academic standing throughout the season.

Boesel mentioned that last year’s team played better in December than they did during SCIAC, but hopes that the present La Verne team will be different.

“For the team I want to win a conference championship and go to the playoffs,” said Duran.

In order to obtain the conference championship, the Leopards will have to first conquer their rebounding demon, according to Boesel.

Although the tallest player on the team is 6-7 freshman forward Richard Walsh, who coincidentally does not start, Boesel expects his players to make up their collective size disadvantage with aggressiveness on the boards.

“Our effort is going to have to make up for our height each night,” said Boesel.

The Leopards will play “an up-tempo game,” by pressing, trapping, and pushing the ball up the floor offensively. On defense the team will be playing man-to-man and press, while on offense they will execute motion and fast breaks.

This game plan will require most, if not all, of the players on the team to see action, due to the fatigue factor created by an up-tempo game. The fatigue factor happens to play right into the hands of the Leopards strength, which is depth.

In their first game of the season against Life Bible College last week, the Leopards up-tempo and fast break strategy seemed to work to perfection as they managed to cause 32 turnovers in a 108-42 whipping of the Warriors.

“In reality turnovers are not necessarily our goal. Our goal is to keep the tempo up, play a lot of people, and fatigue from the opponent will hopefully settle in,” said Boesel. “Their kids [Life Bible] played hard, they never gave up, and they played until the end, you have to respect that.”

Life Bible did seem to self-destruct, while its lack of talent and sheer numbers (players) did not help their cause.

“It’s nice to get a win coming out of the blocks, but in no way can we be content with tonight, because next Tuesday we play one of the tougher teams on our schedule [Southern California College],” said Boesel, after the Life Bible win.

The matchup against SCC did end up being a tough game, since the Leopards lost a 91-89 heartbreaker in the waning seconds of the contest.

“I thought we had a chance to win it, and we just didn’t finish the game,” said Boesel. “We gave up too many transition baskets, and sent them [SCC] to the free-throw line way too often.”

The 16 turnovers SCC caused was due to its pressing defense, which the Leopards also used. La Verne’s intensity was high on both sides of the ball.

“If we play with the intensity that we did tonight, against SCC, we should win our next three games,” said Boesel.

The Leopards top scorer was Cauley, who amassed six three-pointers in route to a 24 point game. Southern California College’s leading scorer was senior center Terence Wilborn, who accounted for a third of the teams points with 30.

La Verne’s next game is at home against La Sierra Monday at 7:30 p.m.

Danny Eckardt
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