NCAA BK

Reloading and rebuilding

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Updated Nov 8, 2009 1:30 PM ET
     
 
This is the time of year when many college basketball coaches get behind a curtain, blow a lot of smoke, ring a lot of bells and play the Wizard of Oz in trying to build up their teams. That's not how Damon Goodwin of Capital, Mike DeWitt of Ohio Wesleyan and Dick Reynolds of Otterbein operate. The only promise each is making is that their teams will compete and have a chance to be winners. Capital has the most questions to answer after losing seven seniors, including two-time Ohio Athletic Conference player of the year Nate Stahl and all-conference guard-forward Ryan Wood. The Crusaders won 50 games and reached the NCAA Tournament the previous two years. "Our goals are no different and that is to compete in the conference for a championship and to get into the NCAA Tournament," Goodwin said. "We lost a lot of great players, but we won't change much. We are who we are." What will change is the leadership. A lot is expected of senior guards Ben McGrath and D.J. Frazier and junior forward Adam Johns. "Those three must step up and must be the focal point of our team, and they know that," Goodwin said. "How much they do will determine how far we go." Ohio Wesleyan is coming off four straight winning seasons. DeWitt thinks a fifth is possible despite losing two of his top three scorers. The Bishops will lean on 6-foot-6 sophomore Pat Pellerite and senior point guard Rob Gardiner of Dublin Coffman. "We lost some good players, but we do reload at Ohio Wesleyan," DeWitt said. "We lost three guys off the team that went to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament two years ago and we still competed for a conference championship. Pat has a chance to be one of the best players in the conference and Rob is one of the best leaders we've had." DeWitt said the Bishops should compete for a championship in a North Coast Athletic Conference that had been dominated by Wooster and Wittenberg until the past five years. "We've put a lot of hard work in," he said. "We're not a two-team conference anymore. We still have to work to get what we want." The chances are good that Otterbein won't come anywhere close to finishing with a 5-20 record like it did last season because of a refurbished lineup. The Cardinals return OAC scoring champion Brian Pollock, a 6-2 senior from London who averaged 20.1 points, and 6-5 senior Cory Ratai of Johnstown. "We've got some size that we haven't had in a few years and hopefully we can get back to being competitive," said coach Dick Reynolds, who was inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in May. An example of the added bulk is 6-7, 235-pound freshman Chris Davis of Fairbanks. "I don't know how good we'll be. I think we're going to have a better attitude and more commitment," Reynolds said. mznidar@dispatch.com
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