The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Young SHU eager to prove doubters wrong
Pioneers picked last in NEC poll
A year after receiving three first-place votes and being picked to finish second in the Northeast Conference men’s basketball preseason poll, Sacred Heart is in a much different role.
The departure of five of the top six scorers led to the Pioneers being picked last in the 10-team NEC in the poll that was released on Thursday. Central Connecticut was picked one spot ahead of Sacred Heart.
E.J. Anosike, the top scorer and rebounder, is now at Tennessee, Koreem Ozier transferred to Louisiana-Monroe and point guard Cameron Parker headed to Montana. Aaron Clarke is the only returning double-digit scorer while former Amity High star Tyler Thomas could see an expanded role after averaging 19 minutes per game as a freshman.
The offense could run a lot more through the backcourt of Clarke and Thomas after running things through Anosike and Jare’l Spellman en route to a fourth-place finish in the NEC a season ago.
“Certainly starting with a backcourt like that excites us,” Sacred Heart coach Anthony Latina said. “We have Zach [Pfaffenberger] who played behind two of the better frontcourt players in the league, so we have three guys who have a ton of experience, played a lot of minutes and we think can really take that next step in their development.”
Clarke began the season as a reserve, but after Parker suffered a season-ending injury, Clarke started the final 15 games at point guard.
“I don’t feel like it was a drastic adjustment, but it was an adjustment in the fact that when I came off the bench, I also had to run the team, be a spark, try to give us some energy, if we were in a scoring drought, try to score,” Clarke said.
The Pioneers have eight freshmen as well as Trinity Catholic product Cantavio Dutriel, a junior forward with previous stops at Harcum and North Alabama.
Central returns five of the top six scorers after having seven freshmen or sophomores average more than 15 minutes per game. The young squad lost their first 20 games against Division I competition, falling by an average of 13 points per contest before going 3-7 down the stretch with four single-digit losses.
Ian Krishnan is back after leading the team in scoring, averaging 12.5 points per game as a sophomore. Greg Outlaw, Myles Baker and Jamir Reed also return after averaging more than eight points per game as freshmen.
“They thought they could be better than four wins last year and they are very upset about that,” Central Connecticut State coach Donyell Marshall said. “We missed the whole summer working out and that was difficult for us with us being so young last year. We were getting better at the end and we thought we were going to be able to move forward this summer. We have less to put in so I think that helps us.”
Waterbury’s Ty Flowers, a redshirt senior forward at LIU, was named to the All-NEC preseason team.
Fairleigh Dickinson received six of the 10 firstplace votes to earn the No. 1 spot in the poll followed by LIU. Bryant, which is coached by former Quinnipiac star Jared Grasso, is tied for third with Mount St. Mary’s.
Defending NEC tournament champion Robert Morris is now a member of the Horizon League.