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Ravens basketball begins work for new season
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| From L-R, Maurice McNeil, Devin McDonald and Sam Rayburn High School product Andrew Gonzalez will be three of the returners on San Jac's roster this basketball season. |
By ROBERT AVERY
After riding out Hurricane Ike with nine of his players at the San Jacinto College dorms and then hearing that a possible tornado may have damaged some of the campus buildings, head basketball coach Scott Gernander was ready for some sort of normalcy to return to his life.
Fortunately for the longtime Ravens boss, normalcy arrived just in time. It showed up in the form of workouts that started Wednesday for all junior college programs in preparation for the 2008-2009 season.
Now normalcy will be defined by another successful San Jac season where the ingredients are ripe for just such a campaign.
“I know coaches are always positive this time of year but we have five kids back from last year, three of them started quite a bit of the time,” said Gernander, preparing for his 22nd campaign at the Ravens helm. “Andrew’s (Gonzalez) a fourth one back and he’s almost like a starter.”
Lamont Winters, a back-up inside man is also back in the fold.
That group of returners is topped by guard Devin McDonald, an All-Conference Third Team selection last winter and honorable mention pick Maurice McDonald. McDonald scored 418 points over 32 games last season and McNeil netted 384, giving both double-digit scoring averages.
In addition, McDonald was the team’s leading rebounder with 251 boards for an average of 8.4 rebounds.
The Ravens would have been pleased with that core of returners, but then Channelview High School product Jerrod Tillman announced that he was transferring to San Jac from Angelina Junior College where the 6-foot-3 guard was the team’s second-leading scorer last winter.
But it was also an important off-season because graduation claimed All-Conference Second Team selection Stavon Williams who took with him his team-leading 494 points and 15.4 average. Graduation also grabbed Lance Pevehouse, the club’s leading 3-point scorer.
The off-season recruiting campaign produced what the coaching staff believes has the makings for an above-average freshmen group. They’re especially pleased to sign Carrington Tankson, a 6-4 shooting guard from Minnesota, a youngster who was drawing raves from NCAA Division I schools. Thankful to land him, Gernander has already fallen in love with Tankson’s shooting touch.
For his senior year at Osseo High School, Tankson scored 18.9 points and 5.3 assists that led to All-State honors.
“We wanted to get some shooters which I think we did and we’ve got a lot of depth I think inside,” Gernander said.
The team begins a series of scrimmages this weekend in Waco, but the team may not have their legs under them as much as Gernander would like simply because of the hurricane and the disruption it’s caused.
“Conditioning-wise, I think we’ll be behind other teams,” Gernander said.
But like the town itself, the more San Jac’s players get away from Ike, the better that conditioning will look and feel.
And that’s where normalcy comes in. For the Ravens program, that means having the potential to be another stout program at the Juco level.
Fortunately for the longtime Ravens boss, normalcy arrived just in time. It showed up in the form of workouts that started Wednesday for all junior college programs in preparation for the 2008-2009 season.
Now normalcy will be defined by another successful San Jac season where the ingredients are ripe for just such a campaign.
“I know coaches are always positive this time of year but we have five kids back from last year, three of them started quite a bit of the time,” said Gernander, preparing for his 22nd campaign at the Ravens helm. “Andrew’s (Gonzalez) a fourth one back and he’s almost like a starter.”
Lamont Winters, a back-up inside man is also back in the fold.
That group of returners is topped by guard Devin McDonald, an All-Conference Third Team selection last winter and honorable mention pick Maurice McDonald. McDonald scored 418 points over 32 games last season and McNeil netted 384, giving both double-digit scoring averages.
In addition, McDonald was the team’s leading rebounder with 251 boards for an average of 8.4 rebounds.
The Ravens would have been pleased with that core of returners, but then Channelview High School product Jerrod Tillman announced that he was transferring to San Jac from Angelina Junior College where the 6-foot-3 guard was the team’s second-leading scorer last winter.
But it was also an important off-season because graduation claimed All-Conference Second Team selection Stavon Williams who took with him his team-leading 494 points and 15.4 average. Graduation also grabbed Lance Pevehouse, the club’s leading 3-point scorer.
The off-season recruiting campaign produced what the coaching staff believes has the makings for an above-average freshmen group. They’re especially pleased to sign Carrington Tankson, a 6-4 shooting guard from Minnesota, a youngster who was drawing raves from NCAA Division I schools. Thankful to land him, Gernander has already fallen in love with Tankson’s shooting touch.
For his senior year at Osseo High School, Tankson scored 18.9 points and 5.3 assists that led to All-State honors.
“We wanted to get some shooters which I think we did and we’ve got a lot of depth I think inside,” Gernander said.
The team begins a series of scrimmages this weekend in Waco, but the team may not have their legs under them as much as Gernander would like simply because of the hurricane and the disruption it’s caused.
“Conditioning-wise, I think we’ll be behind other teams,” Gernander said.
But like the town itself, the more San Jac’s players get away from Ike, the better that conditioning will look and feel.
And that’s where normalcy comes in. For the Ravens program, that means having the potential to be another stout program at the Juco level.
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