City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

(Ed. Note: This story is part of our 2016-17 college season preview, six weeks of coverage that will span everything from Division I through Division III, junior college and more. To access our entire college of preseason content, check out our Season Preview Hub.)

~~~

Earlier this offseason, CoBL spoke with each of the Division I coaches in the area for a Q&A session, and now we’re expanding it to include the various Division II programs in the CoBL coverage region.

With the first full-time D-II and D-III practices beginning on Oct. 15, we’ll be using the next few weeks to sit down with the area’s D-II head coaches and see where they’re at as they prepare for the 2016-17 season.

In three years at Shippensburg, Chris Fite took a program that won just three games in his first season to one that won an even 20 in 2015-16, falling just short of an NCAA Tournament bid; it was the program’s best season since a 24-7 showing in 2006-07. Despite the graduation of six seniors, Fite still has plenty of talent and experience to work with, including super-talented 6-8 junior Dustin Sleva (15.8 ppg, 11.0 rpg) and a backcourt of senior Abe Massaley (13.6 ppg, 4.8 apg), sophomore Antonio Kellem (11.3 ppg) and Justin McCarthur (10.3 ppg).

With a talented freshman class coming in plus Mansfield transfer Joe Marshall, a 6-5 Susquehanna Twp. product, the Raiders have their sights set on making it to March Madness for the first time since a one-game appearance in 2007.

Here are the (copy-edited) highlights of our conversation:

City of Basketball Love: Year Four now for you guys, and each of the last two have gone considerably better than the one before it. What’s the next step for you guys?

Chris Fite: Obviously, each year our goal is to take it a step further. We’d like to go a step further in our conference playoffs and also we were in the discussion for an NCAA bid and having one of those rankings in the region so certainly that’s on our mind this year too. One of the keys to our success obviously as a team is that we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’ve done of nice job of that the last couple years just taking things one day at a time, one game at a time, and trying to get better, and we’re certainly preaching that this year, that just because we had a little bit of success last year we need to keep that chip on our shoulders and continue to work and try and be a championship team.

CoBL: Before last season, you told our Mike Bullock that anything between 13 and 23 wins would be a success, and you hit 20 right on the nose. What do you think was the biggest improvement from Year 2 to Year 3, and what was your biggest critique of last season?

CF: I think the biggest step we took was our depth and our ability to kind of weather any situation. We were very disciplined in games where we had leads and we managed to kind of protect those leads and finish those games off, and there were a number of games where we got down by significant amounts as certain points of the games and we just kept kind of grinding and plugging away and believing in what we were doing, and we managed to pull out a lot of games down the stretch that maybe we shouldn’t have won. When you’re able to, through the course of the season, have 3, 4, or 5 games like that go your way, it certainly makes a difference at the end of it when you look at the wins and losses. I think having had that success, certainly our guys understand now what it takes, and hopefully that will carry through to this year. As far as things we need to improve, my biggest concern going into this season, as much as we have a lot of talent returning in our core of scorers coming back, we lost a lot with our senior class. We lost six players, and three or four of them played a significant role in our success last year. We’re excited about our recruiting class, but we’re going to need 2 or 3 of these young guys to really step in and carry some weight for us and play a role. That’s the biggest question mark going into this season, but I like our upper class, the leadership coming from our upperclassmen, we’re cautiously optimistic.

CoBL: After a 5-5 start last year, you had a seven-game winning streak, and then another six-game winning streak just after that. Was there someone in particular that you really saw emerge during those streaks as a leader, someone that was rallying everybody together and keeping them through it?

CF: That’s the nice part about this group, we’ve got probably four or five guys that are really competitors, really leaders in their own way, they all have a little bit different personalities but the one thing they have going for them is their competitive nature and high basketball IQ, and their willingness to sacrifice and to pull each other along. We’ve got in our recruiting class some guys that are built the same way, they’re just really tough-minded kids, sand when you get six, seven, eight of those guys on a roster, you feel like you can step out and compete with anyone. One of the nice things about the stretch we had last year and we would go on streaks is that each night it seemed like a different guy was stepping up statistically...it wasn’t like the weight was all on one or two guys’ shoulders. Any given night, a guy could step up and have twenty points, or impact the game on the boards or whatever, so I think our guys relished that role. Knowing that you have that depth gives the team as a unit a lot of confidence going into situations. There was one stretch where we won five games and had five different leading scorers in each of those games, so when you have that balance, it certainly makes it nice.

CoBL: You did graduate quite a bit, but the seven guys coming back were pretty much all big pieces for you guys last season. Is there anybody that you’re really looking at to take a significant step up from last year?

CF: I’m reluctant to single out or put any of our guys in that type of position, I have high hopes for all of them. Abe [Massaley[ is our main senior, he’s been with me from the beginning here, he was with me in the three win season and he was here in the twenty win season, he’s been a huge part of us changing the culture here and the transition that we’ve made. He really has evolved greatly in his three years here, so we’re looking for him to take another big step forward this year and continue to be the leader that we need him to be. Dustin Sleva had a breakout year this year, obviously making first team all-conference as a sophomore is impressive, so we’re hopeful that he can continue to improve and do what he does. Justin McArthur had a great second half of the year for us last year, he had some health issues early on, so it was nice once he got settled in, he really came into his own, and Antonio Kellem, as a freshman, we threw him in the deep end last year and he handled it really well. Clay Conner and Manny Spann also played significant minutes for us last year and contributed greatly to our success.  Each of them has looked very good in pre-season workouts and I am confident each will take on a larger role for us this year.  And finally Chris Nwandu joined the team last year as a junior and gives us some size, athleticism, and maturity on the wing.  So, I am looking for each of these returners to continue to grow and to lead in their own way and am hopeful that with them being a year older and wiser each will play a bigger role for us this year than they did last year.

CoBL: And you’re bringing in six freshmen?

CF: We have six freshmen and a transfer from Mansfield [Joe Marshall] coming in, so there’s a lot of young kids to be teaching the ropes.

CoBL: What are your expectations for Marshall this season?

CF: He gives us a little bit of athleticism, a little bit of versatility, as far as if we want to go bigger or smaller, and some experience. That was my concern, moving forward, with the amount of young guys we were bringing in, Joe knows what the PSAC is all about, he’s had success at this level already, so I think he’ll be able to step in and help us without missing a beat.

CoBL: In terms of the six freshmen, you graduated several 6-foot-5 wings in Tony Ellis and Jay Hardy, and you’re bringing in several freshmen -- [Cedar Cliff’s] Derek Ford and [Mars Area’s] John Casiello especially -- in a similar mold. Do you see them as more likely to have an impact right away because of their playing a position of need?

CF: Those guys certainly fall into an area where we have a direct or specific need, but to be honest, all the kids we brought in--and I’ve told them this--they all really, across the board, each one of the we specifically have an area in mind where they fill a void for us. It’s kind of proven to be true here, we’ve had a couple of workouts and the guys really fit in well personality-wise, chemistry-wise, and we’re excited about the depth we have in this recruiting class. In saying that, they are still freshmen. The difference between the high school game and the college game is significant, so it’s whether a few of these guys will be ready to step in early and give us what we need.

CoBL: Full team practices haven’t started yet, but you’ve gotten a chance to work with the guys and see where you’re at. Based on early returns, what’s the biggest focal point in the preseason?

CF: The biggest thing for us always, and it’s a concern right now, is that we lose Tony Ellis, we lose David Hardy, we lose Jay Craig, they were all very athletic players, they were physically strong kids, and were able to kind of handle defensively what we needed to get done. Our focus, year in and year out, is to be a really tough-minded, man-to-man defensive team, and to be able to hold our own on the glass, so that’s a concern moving forward, just because of the seniors we lost that played significant minutes for us, that was a big part of what they brought to the table. We’ve already had numerous meetings with the team with regards to this, and it’s certainly a point of emphasis each time we step on the court that we have to be able to defend, we have to be able to rebound the ball, and physically just be tough enough to outlast teams in a slugfest.

CoBL: In terms of taking that next step forward, you were an assistant at IUP for nine years before you came to Shippensburg, and they’ve been one of the premier programs in the conference. You go there on Dec. 3...what would beating them mean to you, and the program?

CF: Anytime you beat an elite program, whether it’s East Stroudsburg or Mercyhurst or IUP or West Chester, it shows where your team is at and that you’re in that discussion as one of the better teams in the PSAC, so if a time comes that we do beat IUP, I will be excited because it means that our team has evolved into one of the programs that can beat anybody in this conference and win a championship. It wouldn’t be a personal success as much as that we’ve gotten the program to the level that it needs to be at, so certainly that would be a big game for us, but every game, we’re already looking at our tip-off tournament at Slippery Rock, and Edinboro, the first two teams to come to town here, we’re already talking about what we need to do to beat those guys, so every win as critical as you know, so that’s been one of the keys for us is just taking it one game at a time.

CoBL: How often do you still talk to [IUP head coach] Joe Lombardi? What sorts of pieces of advice has he given you that you’ve really taken to heart?

CF: Quite often, we’ll talk probably, depending on circumstances, every couple of weeks, maybe once a month. Sometimes we’ll exchange ideas, exchange information, he was certainly a mentor for me and someone that I know I can call if I have any questions or concerns or need any advice, he’ll point me in the right direction. I have the utmost respect for him and that program and what they’ve achieved, and the opportunity that I experienced and gained working under coach was tremendous as certainly put me in a position to, one, get this job, and two, have the success that I’ve had. So yeah, we still have a very good relationship, and I believe it’s a mutual respect.

CoBL: Any final thoughts?

CF: I’m really excited about the group we have, and I’m looking forward to us continuing to grow and to evolve and to take that next step, and hopefully get ourselves back in the playoffs this year. Once you’re there, anything can happen.