By Braedan Shea
@braedan_shea
The drill was simple – one player shooting, three rebounding and passing. The shooter had to make two mid-range jump shots at each of the seven spots laid out around the hoop, a few feet inside the 3-point arc. After hitting two shots at one spot, they must move on to the next and continue from there.
Junior Gary Bess Jr. was the first to step up in his group. The 6-foot-6 forward stood ready, hands out anticipating the pass, shoulders squared waiting to fire his first shot. But Springfield College men’s basketball head coach Mike McClendon wanted to make this drill a challenge and really put the pressure on his guys.
“You’ve got two minutes to go down and back,” he said.
Only 120 seconds to make 28 jumpers.
As McClendon’s whistle blew to start the workout, Bess was unfazed by the test – coming out hot, hitting four of his first five shots. He continued that pace throughout the first trip around, hitting his 14th jumper with just over a minute still left to go. On the trip back around the arc, however, Bess’s pace began to slow.
A miss here, a weird bounce there – Bess could do nothing but wait and stay ready. With 30 seconds left, McClendon couldn’t help himself, and started really applying the heat.
“Come on, Gary! 30 seconds left, Gary!”
Bess had eight makes left to go if he wanted to be one of the few players to say he completed the drill.
Makes eight, seven and six went down quickly.
“25 seconds, Gary!”
Five was next; Bess had now made four straight. Bucket No. 4 was not as easy, however. It took him three tries to find the bottom of the basket.
“13 seconds, Gary!”
Make No. 3 came on the first try, as did No. 2. Bess now had seven seconds to make one shot.
Attempt one, much to the chagrin of McClendon, came up well short, prompting a countdown from the second-year coach.
“Uh oh, Gary! Three…. two…”
Bess put a touch more arc on his final try to make up for the previous shot. The ball floated in the air for what felt like an eternity, spinning end over end, making its slow descent toward the basket.
Bess had already started running and screaming in celebration when the shot went up, his back turned to the hoop. His three rebounders followed suit as the ball hit nothing but net, a perfect swish that left the net wrapped around the rim.
McClendon’s dumbfounded smile and the energy in Dana Gymnasium meant only one thing: there is a new era of Springfield College men’s basketball on the horizon, and not just because of the Pride’s new jerseys.
After his first season on Alden Street ended with a 7-18 record and short of the NEWMAC playoffs, McClendon got to work, determined to use his first full offseason to bring in a team that fit his coaching style. On the first day of practice, an absurd number of players – 24 – players stood around McClendon ready to get to work.
“I over-recruited on purpose, because things don’t pan out sometimes,” McClendon said. “I won’t always look to do a recruiting class like this, but I really sat down and said, ‘OK, I need talent, but I also need certain positions and need to be competitive.’ I put all three of those things together and we got 13 [new] guys.”
This recruiting class was headlined by players like Bess Jr., who averaged over 10 points and three rebounds a game off the bench last season for Kansas City Kansas Community College. His younger brother, Garyn, a first-year, was a key piece to the Christopher Columbus High School team that won the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) Class 7A basketball State Championship last spring.
With this new pool of talent – plus returners such as guards Zeke Blauner, John Paulino and Nick Bray; and big men Curtiss Blische, Josh Hartley and Josiah Evely – McClendon believes this team will stay in more games this season.
“My expectations are always going to be for us to compete,” McClendon said. “I don’t go into games thinking, ‘This is a win, this is a loss.’ I go in to see how we respond to adversity, because to me, sports is just one big adversity.”
Another addition to the Pride this season has been a practice squad, made up of players McClendon didn’t want to let go. He hopes they can develop further into players who can add to the team down the line.
“We carry 18 to road games, dress 19 at home,” McClendon said. “My goal for those other guys is that I feel like they add value to our program. They still need some time to develop, but you keep practice players who you think can add value to your program, and then in hopes to develop them.”
One such player is junior forward Andrew Soron. After not trying out his first year on campus to focus on school and getting acclimated, then contracting infectious mononucleosis just a week before tryouts last season, Soron has finally made the jump to joining the team, and is doing everything he can in his new role.
“I just push everyone, and push myself,” Soron said. “Overall, I want to make everyone better, and have everything we do in practice translate to games. I try to just bring energy to pick guys up.”
Besides being the beginning to a new season, Springfield has extra motivation before its first tipoff, on Wednesday, Oct. 8 at cross-town rival Western New England. The Pride were ranked sixth in the NEWMAC preseason rankings, meaning the team is projected to just nearly make the postseason tournament.
“I’m not going to lie, it didn’t feel good,” Bray said. “I feel like we should have been higher on the rankings, especially when you look at who is returning and what we brought in. But it’s just the opportunity to prove whoever made those rankings wrong.”
Photo by Braedan Shea/The Student