City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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No one in the Ursinus locker room is jumping for joy after a 3-0 start to the season.

After all, the Bears have much bigger plans ahead as the program builds to get back to the level it was at a decade ago, when NCAA tournament trips were the norm in Collegeville.

Head coach Kevin Small divided his team’s rebuild into three phases: Phase I was building a culture, which began with a three-man 2014 recruiting class. Phase II was improving on performance and execution, with a lineup last year that consisted -- before injuries set the plan back a bit -- of three sophomores, a junior and a senior.

Now they’re moving on to Phase III: turning that hard work into on-court success.

“We had Phase I, Phase II,” said junior forward Remi Janicot, one of those three key 2014 recruits. “We’re in Phase III now, and we have to win.”

So far so good for Ursinus, which took down Haverford College 80-53 on Tuesday night to stay undefeated through three games for the first time since 2008-09, winning its Centennial Conference opener for the first time in four years.

It’s a small measure of success, to be sure, and Haverford (1-3, 0-1 Centennial), coming off a four-win season, doesn’t present the same challenge that league matchups against Franklin & Marshall, Swarthmore and Dickinson will. But it’s a step in the right direction, and there are reasons to think this could be the year the Bears (3-0, 1-0) make that leap back into the top of the Centennial.

“There’s a different vibe,” said senior guard Matt Knowles (13.0 ppg), who led the team with 14 points in the win over the Fords. “We’re a little more confident as a group this year, we were more confident this fall, we feel like we have a lot of experience, a lot more talent than we’ve had in a really long time. That was kind of our expectation, we wanted to start off the season like that, and we thought we would. Feels really good going into Thanksgiving 3-0 right now.”

Small, who’s in his 17th season as head coach, is far from satisfied.

He remembers guiding the program to an undefeated 20-0 league mark in 2007-08, a season that ended with the Bears in the NCAA Final Four. When Ursinus regularly had Centennial Conference Player of the Year winners, when conference championships were expected and not just lofty goals.

The program that went 11-14 last year, that hasn't had a winning season since 2009-10 (15-11), Small hopes is in the past.

“I think we’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said. “Tonight, we turned the ball over 19 times, and that’s something that against really high level Division III teams we’re not going to end up winning by 27.

“Do I feel better?” he continued. “Of course, but I’m aware that this is a very aspirational group...Ursinus was first or second in this league for 10 straight years, and this group wants that.”

That 2014 recruiting class -- Janicot (8.7 ppg/7.0 rpg), Brian Rafferty (9.0 ppg/6.0 apg) and Joe LoStracco (4.3 rpg) -- are all crucial pieces on a team that goes 10 deep, with size across the board. Le Moyne transfer Zach Quattro (12.7 ppg), a junior 6-foot-7 Hatboro-Horsham grad, is one of seven players on the roster 6-6 or taller, including Janicot (6-7) and LoStracco (6-7); Rafferty is a big point guard at 6-4, with 6-5 freshman Ryan McTamney (13 pts vs. Haverford), 6-6 freshman Shane Stark (3.7 ppg/5.0 rpg) and 6-5 soph. Matt Williams (6.7 ppg) all coming off the bench.

Add in sophomore guard Eric Williams Jr., who’s leading a team-high 13.7 ppg while shooting 10-of-14 (.714) from 3-point range, and it’s a group with a lot of offensive options and versatility.

“I think depth is a big thing, and I think just experience,” Knowles said. “The guys who are sophomores are now three-year starters as juniors, I’m a senior now, so I’ve been around for a little while. Experience -- knowing what the league is about, knowing what college basketball is all about -- and then depth are the two biggest things.”

There were growing pains evident against Haverford -- namely in the 19 turnovers, but also in 23 team fouls and some missed defensive assignments early on.

“We didn’t play very well the first half,” Janicot said. “We got in the locker room and we said like ‘yeah this is unacceptable’ and came out the second half and I thought the first five minutes of the second half were huge, we got them in foul trouble, got to the free-throw line a lot and that really put them down."

There isn't a ton of time to get everything tightened up, with a trip to Widener looming Saturday and one to No. 23 Franklin & Marshall coming next Thursday night. After that comes a four-game home stand that includes another Centennial favorite, Swarthmore, as well as another conference game in McDaniel plus local squads Eastern and Rosemont.

If this is the year Ursinus is going to turn that corner, they'll say a lot with a strong December.

“We’re 3-0 and I think our kids feel like they’ve got a lot of work in front of them," Small said, "and I’m pleased by that.”