2003-04 W&M Men's Basketball Outlook

10/16/03 11:06AM

- If you’re going to be building something, it helps to start with a good foundation.

That will be the plan for first year William and Mary head coach Tony Shaver and his staff as they take over a program that lost four starters from last season, but returns one of the top players in the Colonial Athletic Association in senior forward Adam Hess. Along with senior forward Zeb Cope and fourth-year junior guard Reid Markham (who redshirted last season) the Tribe will have plenty of guidance for the upcoming season.

“Our two seniors give us great leadership,” said Shaver. “That’s something that is paramount to the success of this year’s team, and we’re fortunate to have quality people like Adam and Zeb this season to give us a firm base to build from.”

One of the hallmarks of Shaver’s previous teams has been an up-tempo, pressuring style of play that is exciting both for the players and the fans. He will implement that system immediately, which will be a change from the Tribe’s style of play in the past.

“I think you will see a very exciting brand of basketball here,” explained Shaver. “We plan to pressure the basketball. We will be a press-oriented defensive team and we are going to push the ball up the floor on the offensive end. When people come to see us play this year, I hope they will be impressed by a lot of things, but two things in particular. First will be how well our guys play together—each individual participating in the whole and making the whole better. Second, I want people to be impressed with the level of intensity that our players approach the game. That is very important to me as a coach, and it will become very important to them as players.”

While this new plan of attack will inevitably require some adjustment, in no way does it mean that this season, and the careers of the current players, will be wasted on preparing solely for the future. From his first day on the job, Shaver has stressed that his goal is to win immediately with the current team playing a crucial role.

“One thing you will not hear me say is that, ‘when I get my players here, we will start to win, ’” said Shaver, as he gestured toward the team at his first W&M press conference. “These are my players. This is our team. This is our season.”


Guards
Expected to run the team from the point guard position is 2002 CAA All-Rookie selection Nick D’Antoni. Although he saw limited action as a backup last season, he proved himself capable of playing the position as a freshman, when he led the team in assists and started nearly every game. Also a threat to score when necessary, he finished fourth on the team with 201 points as a rookie, including a 30-point effort in just his fifth collegiate game.

The battle for the starting off guard position will be one of the more interesting of the preseason, as junior Reid Markham and sophomore Taylor Mokris have both played well at the position.

Markham sat out all but five games last season (his third at W&M) due to illness, however, the team’s request for a medical redshirt season was granted by the NCAA, giving him two full years of remaining eligibility. A seldom-used reserve as a freshman, he was the team’s biggest surprise as a sophomore, when he was arguably the best player through the first half of the season. Scoring in double-figures eight times that year, he ended with 6.7 points per game and finished in the top-three on the club in every shooting percentage category. Unique on the team with the ability to slash to the basket as well as pull up from the outside, he could be a crucial wild card in the Tribe’s success this season.

Mokris started his career slowly, but improved as the year progressed, finishing as a legitimate scoring threat. In a six-day stretch at the end of the season, he averaged 12.0 points and shot 70 percent from the field in three games against the top three teams in the conference standings. The Monday following the first two games in that run Mokris was named the CAA Rookie of the Week, and he came out that night with a career-best 15-point performance against the eventual conference champion, UNC Wilmington.

New to the team is walk-on freshman Adam Trumbower, a 6-2 guard from Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, Virginia. A first team All-Virginia pick last year, he was named the Roanoke Metro Player of the Year, and was also his high school’s athlete of the year. No stranger to top-level college basketball, he was a high school teammate of Duke star J.J. Redick, guarding the future All-American in practice for three seasons.


Forwards
Back for his final season at W&M is senior captain Adam Hess, the CAA’s top-returning scorer with an average of 20.1 points per game, and a candidate this season for conference player of the year honors. A second team Academic All-American as a junior, he was also a first team NABC All-District selection and was just the second player in school history to earn first team All-CAA accolades. Hess scored more than 30 points in five games last season (a school record) and was twice named the league’s player of the week.

Already with one of the finest seasons in Tribe history under his belt, Hess continued to work tirelessly in the offseason and will look to improve on last year’s heady accomplishments. His name appears throughout the College’s single-season record book, and should start to appear in the career lists well before the end of this campaign. A difficult player to defend at the swing position, he shot more than 37 percent from three-point range last season and collected close to three offensive rebounds a game.

He will be joined by classmate Zeb Cope, a dependable 6-8 power forward who led the team in rebounding four times last season, despite playing alongside Hess and graduated seven-footer Adam Duggins, two of the top rebounders in the conference. One of the strongest players on the team, Cope is known for his devastating screens on offense as well as his relentless pursuit of loose balls and rebounds on the defensive end.

Also returning this season is Steve Sorenson, who saw action in just seven games as a redshirt freshman. After a season behind a number of older players at his position, the sophomore will need to step up his play this year in order for the Tribe to be successful. At 6-9 and 225 pounds, he has a knack for knocking down three-pointers and his versatility could pose problems for opposing defenders.

Freshman Corey Cofield will immediately see action for W&M, at least coming off the bench, if not also being penciled into the starting rotation. A three-time ISL All-American at Roxbury Latin in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the 6-6, 220-pounder broke his high school’s record with 1,181 points and 784 rebounds in his career. Averaging a double-double his last three seasons, he finished his senior year averaging 19 points and 16 rebounds a game.

Hawley Smith, is a transfer from Temple who played 62 games in two years for the Owls. Smith, who won’t be eligible top play for W&M until next season, is a tough, gritty player who excels at taking care of the little things in the game. He was an Atlantic 10 All-Academic selection last year and a two-time recipient of Temple’s Sixth Man award. Smith will play a big role in the team’s success, despite being unable to play in games, as he pushes the rest of the players on the squad during practice


Centers
W&M has a pair of young centers on the roster in sophomore Nate Loehrke and redshirt freshman Brian Hutt. At 6-10, Loehrke is the tallest player on the team and his exceptional wingspan and shot blocking ability will help him to clog up the lane and protect the basket on defense. With a variety of post moves, including a nice touch on his hook shot, Loehrke, who redshirted his freshman year, is expected to see more playing time for the Tribe this season.

Hutt redshirted last year as a true freshman and saw significant improvement in his physical conditioning as well as his feel for the college game. A tenacious competitor around the basket on both offense and defense, he is very athletic for his size and may also see time at the forward position.


Schedule
The 2003-04 season features a matchup against national preseason top-25 team Pittsburgh, a Thanksgiving tournament at George Washington, as well as games against Virginia, Virginia Tech and seven other in-state opponents. The Tribe will begin the year at home against Liberty, before hitting the road immediately for a game the next day at Radford. The day after Thanksgiving is the start of the Red Auerbach Colonial Classic, hosted by GW and including Appalachian State and St. Francis (NY). Early in December, W&M will play the first two Colonial Athletic Association games of the season, hosting two-time defending league champion UNC Wilmington and traveling to face local rival Virginia Commonwealth. Coming out of final exams, the Tribe will face Hampton and play at Virginia Tech before going home for Christmas. After the holiday, the Green and Gold will host Campbell before taking on the toughest stretch of the season, three games in five days against Pittsburgh, Virginia and UNC Wilmington, all on the road. From there W&M plays all conference games the rest of the way, ending with a February 28 game at home against VCU to close out the regular season.