NT Daily Article

SNAKE3 · October 31, 2002

Men's basketball

2002 PREVIEW

Dario Aguilar

Sports Editor

October 31, 2002

Improved defense a key factor for 2002-2003 season

Senior guard Chris Davis is ready for the basketball season to start now. He can't wait.

After last year's 82-68 loss to Western Kentucky in the second round at the Sun Belt Conference tournament, Davis said he was not ready for the season to end.

Second-year coach Johnny Jones had the nation's third best improvement in winning percentage last year. (.143 in 2000-01 to .571in 2001-02)

Davis will not have to wait much longer as the preseason begins Nov. 8 and the season opener follows Nov. 22 at Springfield, Mo., against the Southwest Missouri State Bears.

But this year, a focus has been put on defense.

While the Mean Green ranked first in the Sun Belt in scoring offense averaging 78.4 points per game, while it gave up a conference-low 78.2 points per game.

"The coaches have really been getting after us on playing defense," Davis said. "We need to get in our opponents' faces."

NT will also have to play without its two "defensive tools" from last season. Guards Kenneth Mangrum and Terence White were lost to graduation.

However, Mangrum has come back this season to work as a student assistant to help with defense.

"We need to step up on defense with [with Terence and Kenneth] gone," Davis said. "They were both very athletic. We need to lock our men up when we are playing."

During last year's recruiting season, head coach Johnny Jones signed players he believes will help on defense.

Junior forward Michael DeGrate and freshman guard Scott Roniger are two of the just four fresh faces on the team.

"The whole team goal is to better our defense and I think I am going to be apart of it," DeGrate said.

DeGrate added that it has been easy to come into Jones' system of basketball and is eager to help the team in any way possible.

"He's done an excellent job so far," Jones said.

"I knew watching him in junior college that he was going to do well. He is a fine basketball player and he came from a fine program. He's getting better each day."

The other two freshman recruits include forwards Ron Harris and Ty Thomas who have both met Jones' expectations from what he saw of their play in high school.

"All of them have had some really good days," Jones said.

"They all could be major contributors to the team."

In a scrimmage Wednesday, Jones said he was pleased with how the game flowed.

"I was impressed with some areas and I see some things we need to work on," Jones said.

"I got excited when some of the plays developed and the guys are picking things up pretty fast."

Jones added that while the defense made steps to fix its defensive problems on the court last season, not only will NT need to shave points off of the opponents scoring but keep the other team from attempting as many shots.

"We felt like we made some improvements on defense last year," Jones said.

"But we haven't made the strides that we would have liked to. I think we made a ten-point improvement in terms of our defense. I think with the addition of our new guys in the post and the perimeter we have a chance to do that."

Cerebus · October 31, 2002

I was dissapointed in the amount of coverage the Daily gave the basketball team this year. Last year, the season preview was an 8-10 page insert that looked really, really good. This year, 1 page.

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