{"id":1964,"date":"2015-11-01T06:46:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T14:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1964"},"modified":"2015-11-01T06:46:40","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T14:46:40","slug":"basketball-hype-and-expectations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/basketball-hype-and-expectations\/","title":{"rendered":"Basketball hype and expectations"},"content":{"rendered":"
By:Jamal Smith<\/pre>\n
Are you getting excited for basketball? Lucky for you, both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s basketball teams are currently preparing for the start of the season.<\/p>\n
The GNAC coaches\u2019 poll, released on Thursday, Oct. 15, ranked the men\u2019s team no. 2 out of the 11 teams in the conference.<\/p>\n
The expectations for the men\u2019s team are high on the shoulders of last season\u2019s successes. <\/p>\n
The Wolves finished the season with a program best winning record of 23-7 and reached the NCAA Division-II West Regionals for the first time in school history.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe season is just a journey and we are starting out 0-0 just like everybody else, and last season doesn\u2019t mean anything,\u201d stated head coach Jim Shaw. \u201cWe have to approach this year as an opportunity to get better every day, and then we will be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s team has four returning starters, and two First Team All-GNAC selections in redshirt: senior Andy Agvi (F) and senior Julian Nichols (G).<\/p>\n
Agvi was also selected for the GNAC pre-season All-American Team. In his junior year, Agvi averaged 18.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 1.4 steals per game. He also was named the 2014-15 GNAC player of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur foundation comes back to four things: our attitude, our work ethic, our leadership and our ability to work as a team,\u201d added coach Shaw. \u201cI expect them to compete every night, no excuses. We have to leave everything out there on the floor and let the results speak for themselves.\u201d <\/p>\n
Last year, the women\u2019s team had an overall record of 8-18, and 5-13 in GNAC conference play. In the GNAC coaches poll, the Wolves were ranked no. 10 in the conference. <\/p>\n
The women\u2019s team looks to the return of three starters from last year, including GNAC preseason team selectee junior Jordan Mottershaw (G). Last year, Mottershaw led the Wolves in scoring, averaging 12.0 points per game.<\/p>\n
Returning sophomore Sami Osborne (G\/F) had a great second half of the season last year, and started 13 games for the Wolves. Last year, as a true freshman, Osborne averaged 8.8 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
The men\u2019s team faces a huge test in an exhibition game against the Oregon State Beavers on Thursday, Nov. 5 in Corvallis at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
The first exhibition game for the women\u2019s team is also on Thursday, Nov. 5, on the road against Weber State University at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are you getting excited for basketball? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}