Benoite hopes to unearth another Euro jewel like Curcic
Memorial Sea-hawks men’s basketball coach Peter Benoite is accompanying the Canada Summer Games men’s basketball team on a tour of Germany and Austria next week, and when it’s all over, Benoite hopes to be returning to St. John’s with a player or two for his program.
The Games squad, under head coach Blair White, who like Benoite was a Canadian university standout as a player, will be participating in a huge tournament in Austria, involving 465 teams from 21 countries.
The event encompasses all age groups, from adult-level teams, to under-22, down to minor agegroup teams.
Benoite has dipped into the overseas market before, and one only needs to look at 6-9 Serbian Vasilije Curcic to see it has sometimes paid off in a big way, pardon the pun.
Curcic, who will go down as one of the best to don a Memorial University basketball jersey, closed out his Sea-hawks career this season. Since he was named to the Atlantic University Sport all-rookie team in 2012-13, Curcic has been a conference second-team all-star three times and a first-team all-star once.
“It’s tough any time you lose a talented player,” Benoite said. “But we built a strong team around him, that’s hopefully in a position to make up for the loss.
“But there’s no doubt you can’t easily replace someone who was that dominant. But I’m confidence we can play a different style, and can compete.”
The Sea-hawks are losing a lot of size with the graduation of Curcic. When asked if Memorial can compete without a big, dominant post, Benoite cited Exhibit A — 6-2 post Kashrell Lawrence of the defending AUS champion and Usports bronze medallists Dalhousie Tigers.
“If you look at the NCAA final (won by North Carolina over Gonzaga), the bigs were almost not allowed to play,” he said. “They got into foul trouble early.
“And the NBA is playing a more guard-oriented style. It’s moving away from the old tradition of two bigs up front.”
The Sea-hawks enjoyed a breakthrough 201617, finishing fourth in the AUS at 12-8.
Much of the squad returns next season, including Daniel Gordon, who finished 10th in conference scoring, starting point guard Davion Parnsalu, who is entering his senior year, and Nathan Barker out of Corner Brook, who earned a spot on the conference all-rookie team this season.
Jacob Hynes also closed out his Sea-hawks career this season, and Kieran Hawksley, who is moving on to complete a masters degree elsewhere, won’t be back.