Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009

Cougars open second D-I season against Illinois

Schedule has 27 games against Division I teams

EDWARDSVILLE -- Even with a one-year foundation at the Division I level, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville men's basketball coach Lennox Forrester said he doesn't expect the sailing to be noticeably smoother this season.

The Cougars, who faced 17 Division I foes last season and finished 10-20, have 27 of them on their schedule this year, starting with No. 23 Illinois at 7 p.m. Friday at Assembly Hall in Champaign.

"Our schedule is way tougher than last year," said Forrester, in his third season. "Playing Illinois, then coming back home and playing Illinois State at your place and then going back on the road to play Evansville and Ball State ... Those are your four (season-opening) games, and none of them are easy. They're all tough.

"Even though we went through one year of it and we have some guys back who already have their feet wet with Division I, you're hoping they understand what it's going to take as far as competing at a high level to be successful."

Forrester expects the Cougars to have a thin margin for error, a point that was hammered home Saturday when they lost to Division III Illinois College 78-76 in overtime in their final exhibition game at Vadalabene Center.

"Hopefully, losing a game like Saturday will help our guys be even better than before," Forrester said. "You've got to take every game at heart. You've got to play well together, be patient and play team basketball for 40 minutes every night. We weren't mentally tough and it cost us."

Two of the Cougars' three leading scorers return in 6-foot-6 sophomore forward Mark Yelovich and 6-1 senior point guard Aamir McCleary. Yelovich averaged a team-high 13.7 points and made 47 3-pointers. McCleary averaged 9.4 points and led the Cougars with 114 assists.

Yelovich became just the third freshman in school history to lead the team in scoring, and his 369 points were second-most among freshman at SIUE.

"He'll have to be one of the hardest workers in practices and games. That's going to be a challenge for him," Forrester said. "When you have a pretty good freshman year, sometimes you tend to relax your sophomore year because you think, 'Hey, this is easy.'

"But any time you think you've figured it out, you haven't, because now you're going to be a target every game as far as someone to stop. You've got to be even tougher mentally to be able to compete to have a successful and productive year again."

Forrester anticipates McCleary and senior shooting guard Stephen Jones, a Civic Memorial High graduate, to give the Cougars a potent backcourt.

"We're going to need him to score, but at the same time, he can't just be a scoring guard," Forrester said of McCleary. "He has to also be able to distribute the basketball and be able to recognize time and score, tempo of the game, things like that. There's a lot that's on his shoulders.

"(Jones) has done a great job. The fact that he's looking more to score and looking for his shot more, that's a good thing, because we're going to need that. We lost some guys that could score."

Barry Wellington, the Cougars' second-leading scorer last season at 10.2 points a game, was granted his release. Aaron Garriott and Brandon Dunson also were released from their scholarships, and John Edmison graduated.

There's competition at the other forward spot between East St. Louis High graduate Anthony Mitchell, a 6-4 sophomore who transferred from St. Louis University, 6-4 sophomore David Boarden and 6-6 senior Denykco Bowles. Mitchell has intrigued Forrester, but he's trying to overcome a knee injury.

"Any time you have a knee injury, it takes some for you to build confidence in that knee and be as explosive as you want to be," Forrester said. "There's days when he shows signs of it, but the next day, he's hurting and sitting out most of practice because his knee's bothering him.

"He can rebound the basketball, he can put the ball on the floor and get to the basket quickly and he's a pretty good athlete. He just has to get healthy. That's the biggest thing right now that's keeping him back from being as productive as he wants to be or we want him to be."

The Cougars have three post players in 6-10 junior Nikola Bundalo, 6-9 junior Dobrivoje Mavrak and 6-9 freshman Zeke Schneider.

"In the post, Zeke Schneider did a good job (Saturday)," Forrester said. "Being a freshman, you didn't know how he was going to react, and I thought he did OK. Dob Mavrak gave us some good minutes on Saturday with 15 rebounds --nine defensively and six offensively. Nik still hasn't played because he's been nursing a badly sprained ankle and then he had the flu Saturday."

"So as far as the five (position), we're not for sure, but I feel that we have some guys who can give us some minutes. Even if we have to play three guys at that position, I'm fine with it because they all have size."

Junior guards Cody Rincker, sophomore guard Kevin Stineman and freshman guard LeShaun Murphy provide backcourt depth. Murphy averaged 15.8 points and 4.7 rebounds as a senior at Sachse High in Texas.

"He has great athletic ability," Forrester said. "He hasn't quite figured out how to play hard yet, but once he figures that out, he's going to be a special player."

Forrester hasn't set a victory total as a goal.

"We're just focused on the team at hand," he said. "Hopefully, you can win your home games and sneak some out on the road. For us, it's a huge challenge. We've just got to take it game by game.

"But no, there's not a win total or goal that we say, 'OK, this is what we need to get,' because every team's going to be a challenge that we play. The thing I like about this team is they're pretty eager to learn."