By Andrew Parente
When the men’s basketball team takes to the court tomorrow for its season opener, it will be doing so around many familiar faces.
Coming off a sixth-place finish in the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) last year, this year’s squad returns 12 players including all five starters.
Head coach Bill Coen said he knows the importance of this experience, and feels that it will help his team, especially early in the season.
“I think it definitely helps initially, practically when your playing earlier than most teams in the country,” the third-year head coach said. “Having that experience back will definitely help us prepare for our initial games.”
The Huskies will take on IUPUI in Ann Arbor, Mich. at 4 p.m. as part of the 2kSports Classic benefiting Coaches Vs Cancer. They will either face Michigan or Michigan Tech Wednesday. Should they win both games, they will advance to Madison Square Garden in New York Nov. 21 and Nov. 22.
Prior to the season, NU was picked to finish second overall in the CAA by the coaches and other media outlets. However, Coen said he knows it’s important to stick to the game plan in order to be successful as their opponents will be thinking differently when getting ready to battle the Huskies.
“I don’t think it is going to change the way that we prepare, but I think it will change the way that our opponents prepare for us,” Coen said. “Chances are, when your picked higher in the league, opposing teams are going to play with a sense of urgency ,where in the past they might have overlooked us.”
The backcourt for Huskies, consisting of junior Matt Janning and sophomore Chaisson Allen, is one of the most talented in the conference. Janning comes off a year in which he averaged 16.1 points a game. That number was good enough for third place overall in the CAA.
Allen, who started all 31 games last year as a freshman, averaged 9.9 points and 3.5 assists per game. The sophomore gained a lot of knowledge in his first year and hopes that it will continue to help him in his second year.
“I learned a lot about the pace of the game, how it’s fast and how to slow it down,” Allen said. “I also learned how to run the offense and learn how to play with my teammates.”
For Janning, his relationship with Allen is important not only off the court, but away from it as well.
“Me and him get along. We’re roommates on campus and we’re together all the time,” Janning said. “It’s a lot of fun playing together. We always know where each other are on the floor and we have a possibility to be one of the best tandems in the nation, I think.”
Their head coach also knows how important they are to the team and will look to them to lead the offense.
“I think they both had terrific years, last year,” Coen said. “They complement each other very well, both are extremely competitive and they both bring different skills which gives us some flexibility.”
Janning also comes into this year as a member of the all-CAA preseason team, given that honor from league voters. The captain said he was happy to be getting that respect for the league and feels that it was in recognition for his hard work.
“It always nice to get something like that,” Janning said. “I’ve been working hard all summer and it definitely benefits your outlook right away and it feels good to see that you’re getting respect from all over the conference.”
In the frontcourt, NU returns starters in junior Manny Adako at power forward and junior Nkem Ojougboh in the middle. Both players will be large factors in scoring as well as defense.
The only question mark will be at the small forward position. There are many players on the roster with plenty of talent to start. Included in the battle will be three seniors, Chris Alvarez, Matt Smith and Eugene Spates.
“Those three guys, along with freshman Erik Etherly could add different looks to our line-up depending on our opponent,” Coen said.
Etherly is the lone freshman on the team as he joins the Huskies from Alexandria, Va. He will provide some extra depth up front as well as defensive help.
“He gives us some athleticism on the wing,” Coen said. “He is a very long, very active, very good rebounder who goes after the ball. Whenever you can defend and get rebounds it’s a bonus for the team.”
Even though the Huskies have three seniors, Smith is the only player who has been at Northeastern all four years as Spates and Alvarez are both transfers.
Smith said he has seen great improvements during the last four years and notes that the depth on this year’s team is better than in the past.
“Every guy on the squad can pretty much go in at any time and give us quality minutes,” Smith said. “My freshman, sophomore and junior year, we were only able to go about seven or eight deep and that probably hurt us in the long run, but by the end of this season, we’ll be ready to go and play hard because we’ll be so fresh because we have guys that can play at any given time.”
The senior also said he would love to go out on a successful year and that it would mean a lot to him for the team to be successful as well.
“My first three years I feel like I kind of underachieved,” Smith said. “This year I’m ready to be a main component on the team and come off the bench to provide quality minutes and hit some big shots.”
Since Coen took over the team, he has prepared a tough out of conference schedule to prepare the team for the competition of the CAA. This year is no different as NU will take on the likes of Providence, Indiana and last year’s NCAA tournament runner-up, Memphis.
“It’s been a trademark since we’ve gotten here that we’re going to play the best competition we possibly can,” Coen said. “Our feeling is that those types of games really give us the experience and the competition we need to play against the fine teams in the CAA.”
Northeastern will begin much of the season on the road as they will not have a home game until they welcome Holy Cross to Matthews Arena Nov. 22.
Its first conference game will be at James Madison Dec. 6 with its first home CAA game Jan. 3 against William ‘ Mary.
Despite high expectations, Janning said the team has not won anything yet and that every team in the nation has the same goal in making the NCAA tournament at the end of the year.
“Our goal is to make the tournament. That’s been the goal since we started summer workouts,” Janning said. “We got the right group of guys with the right mindset to get in here, practice and if we can convert it over to games, hopefully we can come out with some wins this year.”
