Coming off a season in which the Hopkins men's basketball team finished with a 24-5 record, won the Centennial Conference and made an appearance in the second round of the NCAA tournament, one would not expect there to be many questions surrounding this year's Blue Jay squad.
Unfortunately the Blue Jays lost five seniors from last year's record-setting team, including three starters who were all-Centennial Conference selections, making a repeat of last year's success unlikely.
Coach Bill Nelson, who is in his 22nd season as head coach of the Blue Jays, knows this season may be an uphill battle but is still very optimistic.
"We lost a tremendous amount of experience, not just statistically but leadership-wise," Nelson said.
Nelson, however, does not dwell on the loss of his three leading scorers, Matt Griffin, Danny Nawrocki and T.J. Valerio, to graduation. Instead, he is quick to point out the potential of his front-court and the experience of his guards.
Senior shooting guard and co-captain Doug Polster is the most experienced member of this year's back-court. Although he came off the bench last year as the team's sixth man, he finished the year averaging 8.6 points per game and will be counted on to shoulder much of the offensive load this season.
"He was unbelievable off the bench last year," Nelson said of Polster. "He really lit the fire."
Unlike the shooting guard spot, where Polster's name will be penciled in each game, there is competition at the point. Junior Collin Kamm averaged 2.2 assists per game last season after he was called on to lead the offense after then-sophomore Scott Weisenfeld tore his ACL in the pre-season. Weisenfeld, who averaged 2.4 assists per game in limited action his freshman year, is now a healthy junior who should be back as the primary ball-handler.
Polster thinks his fellow guards are so talented that he likes the idea of sacrificing some of his own playing time for them.
"With our two point guards no one can compete with us in the backcourt," Polster said. "We may even put both of them in at the same time."
A sleeper at the guard position on this year's team is sophomore Pat O'Connell. O'Connell, like Polster, came off the bench last year and was a real spark plug.
He has been hurt throughout the preseason, but Nelson hopes to get him into the starting lineup eventually. At the very least, O'Connell should be able to take over Polster's role as the team's sixth man.
With the experience the team has at the guard spot, they are equally inexperienced down low.
The team lost over 65 percent of its rebounds from last year's team due to graduation and return only two players who averaged more than two rebounds per game.
Senior co-captain Kevin Roach is the only returning forward to have played in every game last season, so the team will be relying on contributions from sophomores Adam Baumgartner and Andrew Farber-Miller as well as freshman John Alberici.
"All three of the big guys have a lot of potential," Nelson said, giving high praise to his young trio. "I need to keep everything in perspective, though, because we are playing so many new guys down low."
In a scrimmage on Friday against York College, a team only two years removed from an appearance in the final four, Hopkins and its big men did more than hold their own against the Spartans.
"The post players were not intimidated at all," Nelson said after the scrimmage.
"We're going to make rookie mistakes all year, but they're not intimidated, so that was encouraging."
The scrimmage, which consisted of three 20-minute periods, saw Hopkins tie the first period. The score remained tight as the Jays lost the second period by one point and the third by three points.
"We surprised ourselves a little bit," Polster said about the York game. "And I think we're going to surprise a lot of teams in the conference."
If the Centennial Conference preseason poll is any indication, the conference will be very surprised by Polster's prediction of Hopkins's basketball success. The coaches and sports information directors of the conference picked Hopkins to finish fourth in their preseason poll. Hopkins was also the only program picked to finish in the top six conference teams that did not receive a single first-place vote.
"There are three good teams in front of us, but we know we can beat them," Polster said.
"Coming into this year, people are counting us out, but we think we should make it to the conference championship and win it."
Nelson knows his team can repeat as conference champions as well but puts it a bit differently.
"I don't think we should put pressure on ourselves to repeat something we haven't done in 21 years," Nelson said, referring to last year's incredible season.
"I never have a goal of a certain number of wins. My goal is just to make the conference playoffs and then anything can happen."
The season finally gets under way this Friday as Hopkins looks to win its sixth straight Blue Jay Invitational, a tournament hosted in the Goldfarb Gymnasium.
The tip-off for this year's opening-round game against the Carnegie Mellon Tartans is set for 8 p.m. The championship and consolation games will be played this Saturday.
Hopkins will then host the Provident Pride of Maryland Tournament over Thanksgiving break and open its conference season at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, November 28.
"The start of the season is going to be tough and we're going to face a lot of adversity all year," Nelson said. "How we handle that is going to be what's most important."
