The Buccaneer men’s basketball team began it’s preseason practice schedule on Oct. 13, giving head coach Ed DeChellis his first glance at a team that includes eight sophomores and freshmen.
The defending North Division regular season champions were ranked third in the Southern Conference preseason polls, but the rankings do not concern DeChellis.
“What do you really say about rankings,” said DeChellis, who led the Bucs to an 18-10 record last season.
“I don’t think anyone really knows how things are going to go, we were picked towards the bottom last year and won the thing in the regular season.”
The Buccaneer’s coach believes the rankings can be a source of motivation for the teams that are picked to finish at the bottom of the conference, as well as, added pressure to the teams picked to win the division.
DeChellis, however, does not think the polls will affect his team.
“We don’t worry about rankings,” he said. “We just worry about trying to put the best team on the floor and to work extremely hard in the preseason and come up with the best basketball team we can.”
On a team that includes only five juniors and seniors that were apart of last year’s squad, DeChellis believes maturity and leadership will be the key element missing at the start of the season with the departure of seniors Adrian Meeks, D.J. McDuffie and Renaldo “Scooter” Johnson.
“Those guys were very mature guys on and off the floor,” DeChellis said. “Everybody knew what they were supposed to do on the floor and off the floor, there were no distractions.”
Seniors Dimeco Childress and Cliff Decoster have already stepped into the leadership roles, but DeChellis will also be looking for juniors Ryan Lawson and Isaac Potter to take over some of the responsibilities left by the graduated seniors.
“Some guys can do that (be leaders on the court) and some guys are just not comfortable with it,” DeChellis said. “We have to find more guys that are comfortable with that role.”
What the Bucs may have lost in experience, DeChellis believes they have gained in speed and athleticism on the perimeter with the youthful group of freshmen.
“That’s the way we kind of feel going into this thing after five days of practice,” DeChellis said. “I think our team speed should be better and our athleticism should be a little better.
“Right now guys are thinking so much as they’re playing that their athleticism has not shown through yet, we do have some additional athletic guys.”
The Buccaneers will use their added speed and athleticism to once again be a defensive-minded team, much like last season when they were one of the top teams in the conference on the defensive end.
“If you can be good defensively, rebound the ball and offensively take care of the ball and not turn it over, you can give yourself a chance to win more games than you lose,” said the Bucs’ head coach.
With practice having been underway for only one week, one of the three toughest challenges that the younger players face is competing at the more intense college level, compared to high school said DeChellis.
“We’re trying to get our young guys to play at a level that they need to play at for longer periods of time,” he said. “They’ve done a good job at playing harder and intense for a certain amount of time, now we have to increase it.

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