Deacons Limp Toward Basketball Season
Sophomore Ari Stewart missed Tuesday’s practice with a hyper-extended knee. Freshman Melvin Tabb was out sick. Freshman Tony Chennault, who has spent his first two weeks of practice nursing a stress reaction in his foot, has yet to be cleared for full participation.
None appear to be problems for the long-haul. Basketball trainer Greg Collins said that Stewart will be evaluated daily, that more will be known today about what drove Tabb’s temperature past the wrong side of 100 and that he and his staff are being cautious with Chennault. But the cumulative result is that no one, not even Coach Jeff Bzdelik, has any way of knowing what to make of the team that, come Friday night, will play its one and only exhibition game against the Guilford Quakers.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that sophomore C.J. Harris will at least start the season at point guard. It might have been a stretch for Chennault to start the Nov. 12 opener against Stetson, given how demanding the position is for anybody, especially a freshman in his first weeks of college basketball. But the injury probably wiped out any chance Chennault had. By January and the start of the ACC schedule, I imagine the competition will have shaken out to the point Chennault might be able to crack the lineup—which would allow Harris to play his more natural position of wing guard. But there’s much basketball to be played before then.
But even if Chennault is cleared by Friday’s exhibition—a huge if at that—there’s little chance he’ll make more than a cameo. So that means that unless Stewawrt and/or Tabb rebound in time to play, the Deacons will take the court with six available scholarship players—Harris, senior Gary Clark, freshman J.T. Terrell, freshman Travis McKie, freshman Carson Desrosiers and junior Ty Walker. Nikita Mescheriakov, the transfer from Georgetown, won’t be eligible until the Dec. 12 game against UNC Wilmington and thus is prevented by NCAA rules from playing even in exhibitions.
Coach Jeff Bzdelik said nothing is set in stone, but he is inclined to start a three-guard lineup of Harris, Clark and Terrell, with McKie at power forward and Walker at center. Desrosiers, in that scenario, would be the depth, and would rotate between the two post positions.
The word I got from Saturday’s super-secret scrimmage at the College of Charleston is that it’s a good thing no fans were allowed into the gym. All would have been in danger of bodily harm given the number of times the Deacons whipped the ball into the stands. But I also heard that the Deacons shot well from the floor and the line and that they got an encouraging performance from Walker.
The biggest surprise in yesterday’s practice probably shouldn’t have been. I was taken by how much Bzdelik plans to play McKie, at 6-7, 205 pounds, at power forward. But of course, until Tabb recovers and Mescheriakov becomes eligible, someone has to play inside. McKie will cause matchup problems for the opponent, but I have to wonder how much he’ll be rooted from beneath the basket by the behemoths who populate the lane in major-college basketball.
Bzdelik said he’s not one to make excuses when he was hired last April, and he has said it many times since. That’s a good thing, because if he started complaining now he wouldn’t have time to do anything else.