Young Spartans must grow up fast

It's Tuesday November 5, 2008, election night, and the specter of change looms over the UNCG Men's Basketball team's practice. But it's not whether Obama will turn North Carolina blue, or whether Kay Hagan will unseat Elizabeth Dole that Coach Mike Dement and his Spartans are concerned with at the moment. Rather the prospect of facing a new season without Kyle Hines-the best player in school history-who graduated last May and is now playing professionally in Italy.

This season's edition of the Spartans practices under the shadow of Hines retired #42 jersey in the rafters, a shadow from which the Spartans must emerge if they hope to challenge for SoCon supremacy once again this season.

It's not just Hines who the Spartans must replace, but also the scoring and outside marksmanship of guard Kevin Oleksiak, and the leadership and ball handling of point guard Dwayne Johnson, who along with Hines formed the backbone and senior leadership of last year's team.

This season's senior-less Spartans will need Ben Stywall, Mikko Koivisto, and Kendall Toney-all juniors who played significant minutes last season-to step up and provide leadership.

"It's really important that the junior class be leaders as juniors," said Coach Dement. "They've played a lot of minutes so they need to be vocal and direct to the young guys and each other."

Stywall recognizes that he and his fellow juniors must make the shift from underclassmen last season to veterans and leaders this season.

"Coach has been stressing that we need to step up and be those leaders that Kevin, Kyle, and Dwayne were," said Stywall. "So it's new to us, but all of us are trying to step into the role (of leaders) and lead by example as much as possible to help the young guys come along."

Without any seniors, Coach Dement and his staff took a unique approach to selecting captains. They made players who wanted to be captains fill out an application and give a presentation to their teammates and coaches about why they deserved the role. The players and coaches all voted afterwards and Stywall, Koivisto, and sophomore Darius Sellers were selected.

Sellers is redshirting this season because of a torn achilles tendon, but according to Coach Dement his maturity and attentiveness contributed to his selection.

While Sellers can help the team from the sidelines and in the locker room, he won't be able to help the Spartans fill the void left by last year's seniors on the court. But he still provided insight as to how the Spartans will adjust this season.

"Last year our entire offense was based around one player (Hines), this year we're going to be much more balanced and deep," said Sellers as he watched practice from the sidelines and gave advice to players who stepped off to rest.

"Last year we tried to build balance from inside out, this year we have to build it from outside in," said Dement.

The Spartans will have multiple options on the perimeter with Koivisto, the Spartan's leading returning scorer from last season who shot 45% from behind the arc, in addition to Toney and Landon Clement, who scored 17 points with five treys in last month's Blue-White scrimmage.

"We have the ability to shoot the ball," said Dement, "but until we develop something inside the defenses can focus on that."

Junior Pete Brown, and sophomores Clement and Daniel Oliver will be expected and relied upon to play significant roles after playing minor roles in relief last season.

Stywall, the leading returning rebounder from last season, will be relied upon for increased production both on the boards and in the scoring column to bridge the gap left by Hines. Brown, will also have to play an increased role and depth will need to be proved by a trio of freshman; Damian Eargle, DeAngelo Jackson, and Elhanan Bone.

"We got to see which of these big men can score, because they haven't had a chance to, they haven't had to, so it's brand new to them," said Dement. "Defensively we've got to make up for Kyle as a team."

The Spartans will also need to find a new floor general with Johnson gone. Oliver is the only player with prior Division-I experience vying for that role but junior college transfer Montel Smith and walk-on Sean Spooner will also compete for minutes.

The Spartans will likely reach deep into their bench early as they look to find a rotation and develop roles for previously inexperienced players. The baby Spartans will need to grow up fast in the face of a daunting early season schedule. They open Friday night at Charlotte and two weeks later face N.C. State in Raleigh. That's followed by two early conference tests against The Citadel and College of Charleston December 4 and 6, here in Fleming Gym. Throw in a swing through Ohio's mid-majors, at Kent State and Dayton December 18 and 20, and home versus Akron on New Year's eve and the Spartans face as daunting an early season schedule as Duke whose biggest non-conference test will be Davidson.

Speaking of the Wildcats-last season's NCAA Tournament darling's who needed a 41-point effort from Stephen Curry to overcome a 20-point first half deficit to UNCG last year-the Spartan's face them Feburary 5 at the Greensboro Coliseum in what will be a showcase game for the program.

For the Spartans to match or surpass last year's 19-win total, the young Spartans will have to mature quickly.

"Growing up will be the biggest thing, and we got a chance to grow up with this non-conference schedule," said Dement. "We're going to have to handle some adversity, especially early we're going to have some bumps and bruises that we're going to have to handle… and grow up with each day we practice and each day we play and try to gain some confidence."

The Spartans were picked by the media and coaches of the Southern Conference to finish fourth in the North Division, but Stywall is confident the Spartans can exceed expectations.

"I think we have a chance to be a lot better than a lot of people think as long as we come out and buy into what the coaches and other staff want us to do, I think we can be pretty good." Stywall paused for a moment, then added "I'm not going to make any predictions though."