Injuries, eligibility issues hurt Brown out of the gates

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The 2011-12 season hasn’t exactly gone the way Brown drew it up thus far. The Bears come up on their last game before a break for final exams with a 4-7 mark, but more than that, not playing well. They were annihilated at cross-town rival Providence on Monday, then lost to New Hampshire on Wednesday.

Brown has been hit hard in the personnel department since school began. Rafael Maia, who figured to change the frontcourt lineup by giving the Bears a better big man, was declared ineligible for the season by the NCAA. Joe Sharkey, who figured to give them some backcourt depth, injured his hip and will redshirt, with surgery coming near the end of this month. Tucker Halpern, who was ready to blossom further now that he would be able to play his natural small forward position more, caught a bad case of mono and is going to redshirt as well, as he’s not improving much. And Dockery Walker, another who figured to contribute up front, is on the shelf.

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Brown Makes Ivy Race More Interesting

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Ivy League race got more interesting on Saturday night.

With Brown’s convincing 75-65 win over Princeton, the showdown between Princeton and Harvard on March 5 just got a little bigger. If things hold to form – and the Bears’ win over the Tigers is just the latest example that one should not assume as much – that game will be between two one-loss teams in the league and very likely determine the champion.

Harvard has a half-game lead due to having played more games, but the Crimson and Tigers are even in the all-important loss column. Many have pointed to the March 5 game as having NCAA Tournament implications, and that may well stand up. But assuming as much isn’t a good idea, something both coaches would surely agree on as they try to go one game at a time.

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McGonagill Leads Brown With Performance For the Ages

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Jesse Agel knew a long time ago he had a tough point guard. Early in the season he could see it in the way he competed with a lot of pressure put on him, and at a position where Brown struggled last year because they didn’t have anyone who was a natural at the position. But even he didn’t think what Sean McGonagill did from on Friday night was going to happen after what happened a couple of days earlier.

During practice on Wednesday, McGonagill and classmates Josh Biber and Dockery Walker went after a loose ball. They all dove at once, and the outcome wasn’t pretty with McGonagill getting the worst of it by far. He made contact with Biber first, then his face went into Walker’s knee, and it was ugly from there. There was plenty of blood, and as one player put it, a lot of the team “was almost throwing up” looking at the aftermath.

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Quick Hitters – February 15, 2010

Some quick hitters from the weekend:

• Brown split its two games this weekend, and the biggest development is that Peter Sullivan appears to be fully healthy.  The junior wing was injured early in Ivy League play and had struggled playing through it, but had two solid games in a row this weekend.  He had a double-double against Dartmouth with 23 points and 11 rebounds, going 14-16 from the foul line, then had 21 points and six boards against Harvard the next night.

• Harvard had its first Ivy League road sweep in 10 years with an 82-79 overtime win at Yale followed by an 81-67 win at Brown on Saturday.  Freshmen came up big in both wins, with Christian Webster reaching double figures in both and steadily improving guard Brandyn Curry scoring 15 against Yale.  Topping both was Kyle Casey, who had 20 points and seven boards against Yale and then had a terrific night against Brown, scoring 27 points on 8-9 shooting from the field, including 3-3 from long range.  That earned him not only the Ivy League Rookie of the Week, his fourth such honor, but also Player of the Week.”I thought Kyle Casey was just spectacular,” said head coach Tommy Amaker.  “For a freshman to have the kind of weekend he’s had is pretty darn special for us, and without him I’m not sure that we’re in the position we’re in right now.”
  Added teammate Jeremy Lin: “He’s just playing out of his mind right now.”

• Another Ivy note: it’s often said that winning on the road in the league is very difficult, but thus far this season road teams are 16-14.

• Northeastern suffered another heart-breaking loss at William & Mary on Saturday, which makes twice in three trips to Williamsburg that they had such an ending.  This time, the Huskies were the ones battling back from a deficit, as they trailed by 16 with over nine minutes left and rallied to take a one-point lead with 23 seconds left before falling 53-52.

• Speaking of road wins, one team that had an adventure on the road this weekend was Belmont, which moved to 16-10 overall and 11-5 in the Atlantic Sun with a 70-57 win at USC Upstate on Saturday.  The Bruins spent 20 consecutive hours on the team bus, from 2:30 p.m. Central on Friday until 11:30 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, as Interstate 85 in northeast Georgia was closed due to poor road conditions from the storm that hit the area.  The game was slated to tip off at 2 p.m. but was pushed back to 7 p.m. to accommodate the team, and they did not get a shootaround – only a 30-minute pregame warm-up.

• UMass scored a 70-62 win over Saint Joseph’s on Sunday, a good follow-up to their comeback win at Duquesne on Thursday night.  Ricky Harris continued his hot play, scoring 27 points, 17 in the second half.  In the last six games, he is averaging 26.7 points per game and looks nothing like the player he was nearly two months ago, when shots just weren’t falling.”In the first part of the season, I felt like I was forcing a lot of stuff instead of letting the game come to me,” said the senior guard.  “Now I feel more relaxed out there, I feel like the game is coming to me.  I’m not having to go do stuff that I’m not capable of doing.  It’s just coming to me and I’m feeding off my teammates.”

Brown Gets Much-Needed Win Behind Mullery, Halpern

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – It’s not uncommon that a long stretch without games will hurt a team.  After only practicing and not going at game speed, the adjustment is just too much and the team struggles initially.  Sometimes that team is never the same again the rest of the way.  But for Brown, a long stretch in December without games might be just what the doctor ordered when the season is all said and done.

The Bears played a lot of games in a short time prior to having a long break for final exams and the holidays.  They didn’t play a game for three weeks.  Jesse Agel could have scheduled a game in that time, but felt it wasn’t a good move in a practical sense.  After Monday night’s 72-71 overtime win over Wagner, there’s another reason that move looks good.

The Bears have some talent in their freshman class, and it’s shown already.  Matt Sullivan has started every game thus far and shows the potential to be at least as good as older brother Peter.  Andrew McCarthy has put up some good numbers thus far, with his 15-point effort on Monday (on 7-9 shooting from the field) being the latest example.  And a player with lots of potential, Tucker Halpern, had his best game as a collegian, going for a career-high 22 points and six assists (with no turnovers).

Halpern missed time in preseason practice with the swine flu and a couple of other minor physical ailments.  Add in that he’s a freshman, and it wasn’t surprising that he had some very good stretches along with some bad ones.  He admits he had been frustrated at times, and part of that also comes from having high expectations for himself.  But the long stretch of practice last month appears to have done wonders for him.

“It absolutely helped me,” Halpern said of the three-week stretch.  “I got back into a rhythm.  For the first ten games before the break, I wasn’t in a rhythm, it wasn’t all coming together.  It finally felt much better after all the practices.”

Because Halpern has a good basketball I.Q. and can be a point-forward type, he can be a big X-factor for this team.  He’s capable of scoring, especially with his jump shot, but he can handle and pass the ball at 6’8″.  The Bears have struggled at times when pressed, but Halpern offers a potential solution to some of the issues there as another ball-handler and with his size.

Monday’s game was Halpern’s first start, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he stays there.

“He’s an extremely hard worker,” senior center Matt Mullery, who scored the winning basket, said of Halpern.  “He’s fought through and he’s one of the more talented kids on our team.”

The Bears need someone to complement Mullery, who will draw plenty of attention given his offensive ability.  As Mullery continues to become an even better passer, others can certainly benefit.  Halpern is certainly one possibility, as are the Sullivan brothers.  McCarthy could benefit inside as well and is active around the basket.

Adding to the need to complement Mullery is that he has had some games where he struggled to finish or has missed a couple of layups, and Monday night was one of them.  It’s uncharacteristic, but it has happened.  They won’t stop relying on him, though, and on Monday he rewarded them by getting two big buckets in overtime that included the game-winner.

“He’s the toughest guy,” Halpern said of Mullery.  “He just leads by example.  He never stops working hard, even when it’s not going his way.  He just keeps going at it and we keep looking for him, and that’s why.”

Ivy League play is coming up after two more road games.  While that looks to be a battle between Cornell and Harvard, the Bears could be a surprise team in terms of where they finish and could play spoiler late in the season as well.  When they are able to get into the halfcourt set, they run their offense well and have done it against good defensive teams.  The big areas of concern are defense and rebounding, and the latter was shown again Monday as Wagner out-rebounded them 40-34.

The Bears felt like they needed Monday night’s game and got it.  They also felt like they needed to win a close game, which made the way they won this game better for them.

“In the last year or two we’ve lost a lot of close games,” Mullery said.  “It felt good to finally come out on top of one of those.  Who knows, it might be just what we need to go into Yale on a roll.”

Bulldogs Come Alive at The Right Time

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – For a lot of non-league play, Yale didn’t look anything like an Ivy League contender. That’s what many thought prior to the season, given that the Bulldogs lost four full-time starters from last season’s team. They also spent a lot of time on the road, which contributed to it.

Now that 2009 has come around, and the Bulldogs got a couple of home games before Ivy League play, the benefits of the schedule look a little more apparent. We often talk about how a team gets battle-tested playing a tough non-league schedule and sees the benefits later, but it doesn’t always work that way. League opponents have a familiarity that non-league ones don’t, and that’s one more factor. But for Yale, things could play out in their favor if Friday night’s 70-62 win at Brown is any indication.

Friday’s game was in some ways a microcosm of the Bulldogs’ season thus far. Brown jumped out to a 13-2 lead before the first media timeout and led throughout the half. The Bulldogs were able to hang in, getting within single digits before long and within a possession in the latter part. They didn’t take the lead for good until four straight points by Alex Zampier broke a 51-51 tie with less than five minutes to go.

In the first half, the Bulldogs couldn’t get Zampier, Travis Pinick and Ross Morin going on the offensive end. They combined for nine points on 3-10 shooting, so there would surely be a need to get them involved in the second half since they are their top three scorers.

“That’s extremely important,” said guard Chris Andrews, another key to the victory. “They pretty much score all our points for us, so the more active offensively Travis and Ross and Alex are, the better off we are. There were a couple of shots Alex made where I was in awe on the court.”

Zampier finished with 19 points and made several clutch shots along the way. Three shots gave them the lead in the latter frame, including an off-balance jumper around the top of the key. Pinick not only scored 10 of his 11 points in the second half, but he also had the ball in his hands more and was able to make more plays happen. He led the way with eight rebounds and five assists as well.

Andrews finished with a season-high nine points, but the numbers aren’t the key. This is a young man who has missed most of the last two seasons due to tearing the ACL in each knee. He played a total of six minutes in two games last season, clearly not ready to be a factor in large part from missed practice and game time during the season. In their last non-league game, he made his first career start against Hartford and helped the Bulldogs pick up their third straight win.

On Friday, Andrews made a three-pointer that gave Yale the lead with just under nine minutes to play. Then as the final minutes came, he sank four free throws 14 seconds apart to help ice the victory.

“We love Chris, we’ve really missed him the past two years, his leadership, his court vision, his shooting,” said Pinick. “For him to step up in a big way like that really helps.”

Considering one of the key players the Bulldogs lost off last season’s team was point guard Eric Flato, Andrews can certainly be a key for this team at the point. He and sophomore Porter Braswell can be a fine combination there, with Pinick and Zampier being extra ball-handlers. More than anything, Andrews can help with intangibles.

“I don’t know that there are too many kids in the country – I guess (Adam) Gore, you can put him in the same category – that are gym rats and love the game,” said head coach James Jones. “He’s our emotional leader and spiritual leader on this team, and to have him playing, being a part of and contributing, instead of being a cheerleader, is tremendous for our basketball team.”

The Bulldogs have survived a lot this season. They have had losing streaks of three and five games, and haven’t been at .500 all season long. In non-league play, they traveled over 10,000 miles as 10 of their 14 games were on the road, and while they did score a 53-52 win at Oregon State, they had their struggles overall.

Since 2009 came around, they bounced back from a loss at Bryant with three straight wins before Friday made it a four-game winning streak. Andrews felt they gained a lot of confidence in the first two wins, over MIT and NJIT, and that may have helped set up the next two wins thus far. The race in the Ivy League at first glance is one for second place, as Cornell looks like a prohibitive favorite, and the Bulldogs could certainly be in the mix there if their play of late is any indication.

“I feel like we’re getting better, and I feel like we have better team chemistry,” said Jones. “I think we have a better understanding of what we are trying to do on both ends of the floor. As long as we can keep that, we can certainly be competitive.”

Jones’ opposite number, Brown head coach Jesse Agel, endlessly praised the Bulldogs’ defense after Friday’s game. One has to think that will give them a chance if they sustain it, continue to get their big three going and Andrews continues to stabilize the point guard spot. If they do, those 10,000 miles might be well worth it in the end.

A bit of Practice Makes the Difference for Brown

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – They say practice makes perfect.  For Brown, that has proven to be true recently in an unexpected way.

The Bears, who improved to 5-6 on Monday with a convincing 89-73 win over Quinnipiac, had a stretch earlier in the month where they struggled just to practice.  After their win over Hartford on December 9, the Bears practiced just twice in 12 days.  Final exams were part of that, but so were injuries – the Bears were down to about six or seven good bodies on most days.  Needless to say, they struggled against Wagner when they returned to action on December 21 in a 78-66 loss.

So when they got back from the Christmas break, they were more than eager to get some practice time in.

“We had very, very hard double practices when we came back from break, and our kids really responded well,” said head coach Jesse Agel.  “They played with a lot of passion.”

The difference was stark.  Brown came out firing in the first half, shooting over 61 percent from the field and making 7-of-8 from behind the arc to build a 47-29 halftime lead.  Although Quinnipiac tried to rally at times in the second half, the big halftime lead stood up along with some good answers to runs the Bobcats made.

“We’ve been getting a lot of work in and practicing very hard,” said sophomore guard Adrian Williams.  “I think we were just feeling good as a team coming into that game.”

A key player in the Bears’ win on Monday, Williams is further evidence of the importance of practice.  Williams had career highs of 29 points and seven three-pointers (on eight attempts) on Monday, and has had a couple of excellent shooting games this season.  But his improvement to help form part of the burgeoning inside-outside attack the Bears have hasn’t come easily.

While he was their most consistent player during a trip to Europe in August, Williams got hurt in practice the day after the season opener.  For about a month, he couldn’t practice, and while he was still serviceable and had a couple of good games in the stat sheet, he wasn’t the same player.  Then he was able to practice leading up to the Hartford game, and he shot the ball well there as he made five three-pointers en route to 19 points.

The inside part of that attack, Matt Mullery, keeps getting better through it all.  While he continues to be unstoppable inside, the most impressive stat line of the day wasn’t his 22 points, which tied a career-high.  Rather, it was his seven assists and no turnovers, as he continues to improve facing the basket as well.

“He’s done a great job of improving his game and working hard, he’s got a lot of desire and deserves an awful lot of credit because he put in a lot of time working on his game,” Agel said of Mullery.  “Now he’s very comfortable, for the first time he feels very comfortable when he gets the ball.”

Added Williams: “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no one who can guard him on the post, so we’re just trying to feed the ball to him and pretty much everything works through him.”

Three games remain before Ivy League play gets going.  With final exams over, the Bears have some time to try to improve in some key areas, notably bench contributions.  Scott Friske is the only starter averaging less than 32 minutes per game, so depth is clearly still something they need to develop, especially with the Ivy League’s slate of games on consecutive nights.  The lack of practice time earlier in the month certainly didn’t help, but now they also don’t have to plan around classes for three more weeks.  That means this next stretch will be crucial for them.

“Luckily for them, we’ll be in the gym a lot more in the next three weeks as well, so we’ll have a lot of opportunity,” said Agel.  “We have to take advantage of the time we’re not in school, because when we’re in school, to have kids come back twice is just not conducive for them to do well in an Ivy setting.”

Considering the effect that practice, or the lack thereof, has had on Brown thus far, this is their opportunity to potentially make or break their season.

Last Stop On Rollercoaster Collegiate Career For Brown’s Skrelja

For Brown University senior Chris Skrelja, the road to success has been about as smooth as a Providence-bound trip up I-95 in snow-blanketing conditions.

Skrelja, a 6-foot-6 point guard, has gone from frustrated freshman to significant senior starter.

“As a freshman, I honestly thought this point would never come,” said Skrelja, once the callow, unsung backup to sharpshooter Damon Huffman.

“A lot of things went wrong for me that year. I think it was a combination of me struggling with the new surroundings and also being a little homesick. My passion for the game really just wasn’t there.”

Skrelja remembers being on a short chain with then-coach Glen Miller (who has since moved on to perennial Ivy power UPenn) just like he remembers averaging a meager 3.3 points and playing just 13-14 minutes a night. He remembers the freshman jitters, the intense rushes of pre-game anxiety and the lofty expectations immediately heaped on the then 17-year-old.

There were a few bright spots. The night he erupted for 19 points and 12 boards in a pulsating, signature victory over Harvard, for example. There was his Ivy League Rookie of the Week selection that followed. For the most part, however, freshman year was a struggle.

After establishing himself as a three-point rainmaker at vaunted Trinity Catholic High School (Stamford, Conn.), getting acclimated to the up-tempo, speedball brand of basketball took time.

“The game is just so much faster in college,” said Skrelja. “So, it was almost like a rude awakening for me.”

Fast forward to three years later.

A second team All-Ivy League selection who posted 8.4 points, 7.6 boards and 4.1 assists during the 2007-08 campaign, Skrelja has evolved into the face of the program. He’s a team captain now, synonymous with versatility, and the guy they want with the ball in crunch time. A big picture of Skrelja, skying to the basket with his heart speeding and eyes burning, is emblazoned on the cover of the team program.

Tremendously similar to former Holy Cross guard Torey “The Mayor” Thomas (who, like Skrelja, grew up in Westchester County and starred at Trinity Catholic), Skrelja lives out his senior year like the star of his own sitcom.

He engages in conversations with just about everyone – the hot dog man, security guard, and a 10-year-old fan – en route to his first home game of the season. The student fan base knows Skrelja like a surrogate family member. After games, a big entourage of them wait around for the rangy Albanian kid, who played for the NYC-based Gauchos on the AAU circuit.

Students in the stands sport a replica of his no. 22 jersey. Off the court, Skrelja invites people to games with the mindset of an event promoter.

He even manages to get the anti-athletic bookworms into the seats of the Pizzitola Center. He lives about 25 feet from there and never fails to put in post-practice hours there. It’s a good life.

Having undergone the metamorphosis from off guard/small forward to point forward, Skrelja is funneled into a leadership role this year. The role of point forward usually demands playmaking antics, control of the tempo, and Skrelja has subscribed to this niche.

“Being a senior, coach trusts me with the ball. My role is to basically be a facilitator. This year I’m going to be more of a scorer than in previous years. I’m still going to have to be a well-rounded player, grabbing rebounds, finding the open man, playing tough defense,” he explained.

Skrelja is averaging nine points and five boards while shooting 49 percent from the floor this season. The transition to game manager role has allowed Skrelja to refine elements of his game and add new compartments to it.

The point forward has become a presence in the running game, operating an offense that features sophomore sniper Peter Sullivan, 6-foot-8 forward Matt Mullery (14.1 ppg, 5.8 rpg), and sophomore Adrian Williams. Williams, the son of Doug Williams, the first African-American quarterback to win a Super Bowl, has surfaced as a go-to-guy this season.

In an 80-73 win over Army, Skrelja erupted for 15 points while doling out a career-high 11 assists.

“Chris faces a lot of pressure. He has to dribble the ball and make all the right decisions,” said Brown coach Jesse Agel.

He made the right decision against Army. He whipped a pass to Matt Mullery for the go-ahead basket and sealed the deal with a pair of free throws. He had four assists down the stretch and scored on a crucial lay-in.

Skrelja’s sophomore year was marred by injuries. Skrelja suffered a stress fracture in his left foot prior to the first game of the 2006-07 campaign. It hampered him throughout the rollercoaster season.

During his junior year, Skrelja shot less and passed more, handing out assists like a frat house hands out cups of jungle juice.

He rectified a free throw shooting problem by switching his form up completely. Skrelja began shooting his freebies with one hand, bringing back a lost art mastered by guys like Don Nelson Sr. and former New York Knick Anthony Mason.

This summer, Skrelja was once again bitten by the injury bug. Two herniated discs in his back prevented him from logging any game action at all.

“You just get so frustrated,” Skrelja said. “You don’t realize how much you love the game and how much it means to you until you’re away from it.”

Following a 3-5 start, Brown will look to resuscitate itself as the Ivy League slate inches closer. If anyone is ready for the challenge, it’s Skrelja. The elder statesman underwent a self-revelation prior to the season, one that reinforced the fact that this is the last hurrah.

While Skrelja’s got no crystal ball, he’ll continue to hold himself to a high standard and leave it all on the floor.

“I’ve always set standards for myself throughout high school and college,” said Skrelja.

“I’ve always had high goals, and this year is just about reaching those goals. Being a senior, this is it for me (at Brown). The most important goal is to win an Ivy League championship. Of course, every college player’s ultimate goal is to make it to the NCAA championship.”

After coming up short of the goal the previous year, Skrelja knows the onus to steer the big Brown bus deep into the playoffs is on him.

“Representing the team, it’s definitely an honor,” he reflected. “But with that comes a lot of responsibility. I know it’s up to me to lead this year. I’m excited for the responsibility.”

Role player no more, Skrelja has serious illusions of a banner year and a berth in the big dance.

Now that’s something Skrelja couldn’t have envisioned his freshman year.

News and Notes Approaching the Weekend

Some quick hitters as we reach the end of the week:

Army may not have the won-lost record to show it, but the Black Knights look like they can be a tough out in an improved Patriot League. The biggest reason is that they have a number of scoring threats to go along with being athletic. After Monday night’s win at Bryant, ten different players have scored in double figures at least once this season, with three players doing it for the first time that night.

The Black Knights are 2-7, and while they clearly have the offensive ability, the players still haven’t fully grasped how to play just yet.

“We’ve got guys that get a little eager at times,” said head coach Jim Crews. “We’re trying to get a good balance; if you’re open after one pass, shoot it, but you can’t do it six straight times. We’re trying to get a better balance of passing the ball around. Sometimes we tell them to pass it around, and they pass it around too much.”

While Brown has reloaded in the backcourt with the emergence of Adrian Williams and Peter Sullivan, it’s the development of junior big man Matt Mullery that has been the biggest key. Mullery at times looked lost on the court early in his career, then emerged as a shot-blocker last season. Now he’s a key player at the offensive end in much the same way Mark MacDonald was last year before injuries curtailed his season.

“We want to get the ball inside to him,” said head coach Jesse Agel after Mullery scored 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds Tuesday night. “I said it after our Northwestern game, if you have a post guy who can cause a double team, you’re in business. After we lost that game to a tremendous Northwestern team, as we’re finding out, he was that guy.”

It’s hard to really know what to make of Boston College’s 7-2 record since the Eagles haven’t exactly played the cream of the crop thus far. They entered the week with an RPI of 59 with a strength of schedule in the three-digit range, and their win over Bryant (No. 270) won’t help that. But they look like a team coming of age slowly but surely. Corey Raji continues to emerge as a consummate garbage man inside, Joe Trapani continues to fill the stat sheet (he had his second double-double of the season on Wednesday with 11 points and 10 rebounds), and some balance is developing as shown by five players scoring in double figures on Wednesday.

The next chance to get a better sense of this team will be a week from Saturday, when they host Providence after being off for final exams.

Iowa bounced back from a tough loss at Boston College last week with two straight wins. The Hawkeyes have just one senior, Cyrus Tate, playing significant minutes, and also look to have several capable of leading the team in scoring on a given night. A number of players on the team can shoot from long range, evidenced by their 42 percent clip from long range. Leading the way there are freshmen Anthony Tucker and Matt Gatens, who shoot just under 50 percent combined from behind the arc.

Eight players average at least 12 minutes per game and no one averages 30, showing how interchangeable the players are. They like the depth and feel like everyone is capable, and it’s a reflection of the coach.

“I don’t know that there’s that much difference between the guys who start the game and the guys who come off the bench,” said head coach Todd Lickliter.

The economy hit a colleague earlier in the week when, as part of a major layoff by Yahoo, Rivals.com recruiting guru Justin Young was let go. He’s one of the best in the business and among the many colleagues I enjoy catching up with while on the road covering recruiting events. I have no doubt that come next spring, I’ll see Justin while on the road as he does great work for someone else.

Simplicity is Key For Brown, New Starters

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – New Brown head coach Jesse Agel knows who’s not walking through the locker room door.

“Our problem was we kept looking for (Damon) Huffman and (Mark) McAndrew,” Agel quipped after Brown beat Army on Wednesday.

The team he inherits lost the two biggest pieces from last year in its starting guards, who combined for over 32 points per game last season. Anytime you lose two starting guards, it’s difficult, but it’s doubly so when those two guards were your best players and meant so much to the team, as was the case with Huffman and McAndrew.

But for Agel, who succeeds Craig Robinson and was a major part of Vermont’s recent success as Tom Brennan’s long-time top aide, there’s something just as important as the personnel.

“All we want to do is make simple basketball plays, and we get caught trying to make great plays,” said Agel. “Great plays take care of themselves, they just happen.”

As it is, the Bears do have a few good guards in place now. Senior Chris Skrelja and sophomores Peter Sullivan and Adrian Williams lead the way, with Sullivan and Williams moving into the starting lineup after being capable reserves last season. The latter two were easily the most seasoned reserves among the holdovers, with players like Garrett Leffelman and Steve Gruber being next in line.

Skrelja was a point forward-type on last season’s team and makes this team go, albeit with a different offense. On Wednesday against Army, he had 15 points and a career-high 11 assists, but more importantly, came through when it mattered. With the game tied at 63, the Bears ran off nine unanswered points to take the lead for good, and Skrelja had a layup and three assists to be directly accountable for every basket in the run.

“Chris has got a lot of pressure on him,” Agel remarked. “He’s got to handle the ball, we’re facing a lot of pressure and he’s the one guy that’s forced to have to dribble the ball all the time and make the right decisions. It’s a hard job, but it’s a job he relishes.”

For his part, Sullivan has made a big leap, and not just in the scoring column. With the shooting ability he displayed last year, no one would be surprised that he made the leap to averaging 16.2 points per game after scoring a career-high 26 on Wednesday. But he’s also leading the team in rebounding with 6.4 per game and is improving his shot efficiency of late. After shooting poorly in the first three games, he was 5-8 (including 4-6 from long range) against Northwestern, then 9-15 (including 5-9 from deep) against Army.

“I think he was feeling the pressure early on having to score for us and make big shots, and I think he’s really settled down and stepped up and made shots and rebounded,” said Agel.

Williams has quietly made the jump to a 13.2 points per game average. Add him together with veteran forwards Scott Friske and shot-blocking Matt Mullery, and the Bears don’t have a bad unit to start the game with.

Damon Huffman and Mark McAndrew aren’t walking through the locker room doors at Brown now. But the players they have, in particular the guards, are still pretty good and improving. That will be the case even more if they stick to making the simple plays the coach wants them to.