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2001-02 Season Outlook There are a lot of familiar faces in the 2001-02 edition of Cedarville University men's basketball and they are expecting a much more positive run this winter. All five starters and ten letter winners return to a program that is eager to see what it can do against what will be a tougher schedule. A major rebuilding project last season included a youthful lineup coupled with nagging injuries from the start. That combination led to eight victories total and losses in games that were chalked up to experience. The Jackets are looking for improvement and have every reason to be optimistic. Ray Slagle, who returns for his second season as head coach, has a full roster to begin with. "We appear to be more healthy than we were last year and that's encouraging," he said. "Scoring will not be a problem for us, but we have a responsibility to defend better. Defense and rebounding will be a primary focus from the start of the season."
David Dingeman is the lone four-year member of the program. The 6-5 senior forward played in all 30 games last season averaging 8.1 points. Curt Fleck, another 6-5 senior forward, started all 26 games in which he played and provided 13.5 ppg with a team-high 68 three-point field goals. He is in his third season at Cedarville. No one else has more than one season of college varsity experience. However, a number of returnees were put on a stiff learning curve as rookies last year and that valuable court time should pay off dividends this winter. Josh Gast was the only player to start all 30 games last season. The 6-3 guard led the team in scoring at 14.5 points per game, shot .774 from the free throw line, and was named to the American Mideast Conference Freshmen Team. Barry Chamberlin, a 6-6 sophomore forward, battled ankle and shoulder injuries to average 10.7 points and a team-high 5.9 rebounds per outing. He is healthy now after starting all 28 games in which he played.
Andrey Arkhipov, a 6-7 sophomore center, will be called upon to play a key role in the post. His absence was glaring last year when an ankle injury forced him to miss 11 games though he did score 9.8 ppg. Greg Guiler, a six-foot point guard, played in all 30 games as a freshman with 29 starts. He dished out 5.2 assists per game and shot .723 from the charity stripe. Cedarville High School products Chad Fires and David Kragel made key contributions last year. Fires, a 5-11 junior, made 51 treys and scored 8.0 ppg while Kragel, a 6-6 junior center, filled in the post with 17 starts and added 4.8 ppg. Brad Kormash, a 6-5 forward, is one of four seniors on the team and played in 20 games in his first varsity season. The other senior is 5-4 guard Brandon Wolf, who saw action in the Yellow Jacket backcourt in 19 games.
According to Slagle, it won't just be the returning players who will be called upon to produce this season when he said, "The new people will help immediately, especially in the backcourt. We expect them to make key contributions." One quite familiar with the CU coaching philosophy is 5-10 freshman guard Jason Weakley, who ran the point for Slagle's powerful Worthington Christian High School teams as a three-year starter. He transferred to Cedarville after spending a year at the Word of Life Bible Institute. Also in the backcourt is 5-10 rookie guard Justin Lower, who led the state of Ohio in scoring in all divisions last year with 30.3 ppg at South Webster High School. Jason Howard, a 6-1 guard, joins the program after taking a year off from basketball since graduating from Cedarville High School. Brandon Lee, a 6-6 sophomore forward, is another newcomer as a transfer from the College of Wooster. The schedule is more demanding with five NAIA preseason nationally-ranked teams on the horizon. Besides the tough American Mideast Conference slate, the Yellow Jackets will square off with the likes of Bethel, Taylor, Christian Heritage, Point Loma Nazarene, Olivet Nazarene, Central State, and Wittenberg. | |||||||||||||||
