Having seen his program begin its ascension years ago, DeWeese’s only question was whether or not the Crusaders would level off or continue to climb.
“All of this has been no shock to me because I always knew we were close,” said DeWeese, whose owns a 575-198 collegiate coaching record and has led the Crusaders to two straight NCAA Tournament berths. “But as we were getting closer, I didn’t know whether we were going to keep working to move forward or whether we would slide back.”
As the last two years have shown, the Crusaders did not choose the latter of those options.
No. 10 UMHB will try to continue its climb toward the national pinnacle this season, which tips off with a matchup against Southwestern at 7 p.m. today at Robertson Center in Georgetown.
The Crusaders return three starters and 10 lettermen from a 26-4 team that won the American Southwest Conference championship and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tourney.
The biggest difference will be the absence of 6-10 post Ryan Burgart, who served as a four-year anchor in the middle for UMHB teams that posted a combined record of 83-28.
“We haven’t yet figured out how you make up for not having him,” DeWeese said. “We got accustomed to Ryan being in the middle and kind of took all of his dunks and all of his blocks for granted.”
Without the dominant post presence, the Crusaders’ biggest adjustment might be on the defensive end.
“It’s different not having that security blanket in the middle,” said senior All-ASC West Division guard Jason Wagner, who is back from an injury-shortened season in which he averaged 10 points per game. “We know we have to work that much harder on the defensive end to keep our man in front of us because we don’t have that guy in the back to clean up.”
Despite losing three seniors from last year’s roster, depth shouldn’t be a problem. In fact, it’s the Crusaders’ wealth of contributors that have made practices longer.
“We have about nine guys that on a given night we have to decide which five of them will start,” DeWeese said. “And right now, we don’t know.
“It’s been difficult to find ways to make sure that all of these different combinations of guys can play well together. We’ve been having some long practices in order to get some work in with different groups.”
In the mix with Wagner along the perimeter will be senior point guard Matt Caskey (team-high 96 assists last season), sharpshooters in senior Tim Lytle (42 percent from 3-point range) and Zane Johnston (33 percent), and 6-1 freshman point guard Sterling Phillips out of Austin SFA.
The primary contributors inside likely will be seniors Tilmon Gaddy - the ASC West Preseason Player of the Year who averaged 15 points and six rebounds last year - David Ray and Michael Ivey, and sophomore Richard Moore.
Freshman forward Greg Wiernas (Arlington Martin) and freshman wing Andrew Graves (Liberty Hill) could see some time as newcomers.
“We’re going to be quicker up and down the floor because, quite honestly, we had to slow down some last year to wait on Ryan,” DeWeese said. “And we’re probably going to be a little more loose on offense.
“There are some guys like Jason, Tim, Zane and Rich who will have the green light. They can shoot it any time they want.”
The players understand things will be a little different from last year and say they are trying to be patient while the squad builds its identity.
“There’s no doubt that there is a different feel because we’re a different group of guys,” Lytle said.
“Last year, a bunch of us new guys were transfers who had played college ball,” Gaddy added. “This year’s new guys are freshmen, so they’re having to learn everything all over again.”
The Crusaders will go on the road to face Trinity next Tuesday before their home and conference opener Nov. 29 against Texas-Dallas - the first game in UMHB’s quest to defend its ASC crown.
“We want another conference championship and we want to win the whole thing,” Wagner said, alluding to the national title. “We felt like we had a team that could have won it last year, but some things just didn’t go our way.
“We know how hard we had to work to get to where we were last year, so we want to make sure we work even harder this year to make it happen.”
