By Zack Ciboth, Sports Editor
The UNC Pembrorke men’s basketball team will look to go on another successful run under the helm of fourth year head coach Drew Richards. Richards was also named District Coach of the Year last season for the Braves by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC), becoming just the second head coach in the school program to receive that award.The Braves will look to build off of a very successful 2022-23 season where they compiled a record of 26-4 and a Conference Carolina record of 18-2. They finished the second part of the season with a 18-game winning streak to claim their second-straight conference regular-season title. They would face the Belmont Abbey Crusaders in the semifinals of the Conference Carolina Tournament and despite a 77-67 loss they would punch their ticket to the NCAA Division II tournament where they would see there season end in a 76-58 loss to North Georgia.
“With having a relatively young team, you know , player retention’s a big deal. Making sure the guys that played for us last year that they were locked into coming back and getting better at improving and try to reach new goals,” UNCP men’s basketball coach Drew Richards said.” We want to make sure the new guys are acclimated and they’ve been doing a good job doing that,” Richards said.
The Black and Gold have 10 returners including players like Bradlee Haskell, Cortez Marion-Holmes and more to help lead a team with eight newcomers to another successful run and another shot at a NCAA Division II Tournament run.
We’ve got seven out of our top eight back from last year’s team. I think it’s an adjustments, you know as sophom*ores guys like Javonte , Bradley Haskell, Nigel Verde, they didn’t know what leadership really was themselves and kinda figured it out during the year. I think not only are they looked upon to be leaders but they’re looked upon to set the tone,” Richards said. ” A lot of this year is gonna be based on how we respond to different events and then going from game to practice to drill and how we respond to each of those”.
The Braves will showcase a preview of their season on October 26th at Lumbee Guaranty Bank court for Moonlight Madness. They will then compete in two prep-season exhibitions against NCAA Division I teams in the Houston Cougars who made it to the Sweet 16 last year in the March Madness Tournament on October 28th and then they will take a trip to Durham, N.C for a exhibition match with the Duke Blue Devils on November 1st who are coming off winning the ACC Championship Tournament at 7 p.m in Cameron Indoor.
You can’t turn team down like that. Coach (Kelvin Sampson) , the alumnus of our program, you know were honored to be able to go down there and compete against them and then Duke was kind of random. We got a phone call and the day ended up working out and you know since I’ve been at UNCP, we’ve played some really high level teams like UNC, NC State, and Wake Forest so the opportunity for our guys to play against two of the top teams in the Nation (Houston , Duke) is great,” Richards said.
The Braves will officially begin there season on Nov 4th and 5th when they travel to Florida to compete against Emporia State and Florida Southern in the HOF Classic in Lakeland, Florida.
Women’s Basketball
The UNC Pembroke women’s basketball team under the helm of head coach John Haskins who is entering his 20th season as head coach of the Braves will look to claim another Conference Carolina Tournament Championship running through the competition and taking down Belmont Abbey in the championship game 56-46 and punching there first ever NCAA Division II Tournament Birth in the 49-year program. The season would then come to an end in a 57-40 Quarterfinals loss to Catawba.
“Yeah, I mean it’s been good.We’ve been trying to get over some injuries that happened late in the season. Couple of our kids didn’t play last year and trying to get some knee things straightened out. So we’re just trying to kind of regroup and get ready for the season,” UNCP women’s basketball coach John Haskins said.”The team that beat us was Catawba, we beat them here during the regular season and they made it all the way to the National Semifinals. So our goal is to accomplish more to move on further,” Haskins said about facing Catawba in the NCAA Tournament this past season.
The Braves will return majority if not all of there players from last years squad and will bring in four newcomers to make another run at claiming the Conference Carolina Championship for the second-straight season and a second NCAA Tournament Birth looking to make a deep run.
“I think we’ve got a very veteran team and really good leadership on this team, basically we’ve got five covid fifth year seniors, this is their fifth year of college basketball. So I really think our leadership has been really positive you know not having (Courtney Smith) out on the floor with her still rehabbing. I think our seniors have really done a good job and kinda shown the way four our newcomers,” Haskins said.
Last season saw both programs beat and define all odds as UNCP became just 1 out of 16 schools to send both there men’s and women’s programs to the NCAA Division II Tournament.
“Well I think there’s a lot of intangibles that go into all that you know, winning, losing games, whether it be a conference championship, conference tournament championship but we like to do more than we did last year. That’s what we talked about in our first meeting , last year was great it showed we could do it but what are we going to do this year?,” Haskins said.” So we got the taste of going to the NCAA’s Tournament . That’s our first step, but can we win games in the NCAA’s Tournaments.”
The Braves will also show a preview of their season along with the men’s team on October 26th in the Moonlight Madness presented by McDonalds. They will compete in a pre-season scrimmage on November 4th when they take on Augusta in Georgia at 2 p.m and then a mid-season Exhibition against Coastal Carolina on Dec. 10th. The Black and Gold will officially begin their season on November 11th and 12th when they will compete in Conference Challenge in Hartsville S.C when they face co*ker and Wingate.
“We’ve done that before, got a few games in you kind of get those Division I when you can get them and I’m sure that will be a regular season game for them ( Coastal Carolina) and a exhibition for us. It’ll give our girls an opportunity to see that caliber team. Augusta I think will be a really good test. They’re a solid Peach Belt team and been solid in the Peach Belt for a number of years so that’ll be a good test for our girls,” Haskins said. ” First exposure to just playing in front of a crowd and it’s usually a good crowd and exciting time and obviously looking forward to that,” Haskins said on the upcoming Moonlight Madness game.
