PORT ANGELES — Welcome to the great unknown.
This year’s Peninsula College men’s basketball team comes into Saturday night’s home opener against Highline with a lot of new faces (eight to be exact).
A number of them (five) haven’t played organized basketball in two or more years, with the average age of the 11-man roster at a well-aged 20.7 years old.
No, this isn’t your normal community college basketball team. It’s one that boasts a decent amount of experience. . . life experience.
“I really think that this team will be exponentially better in January,” said head coach Peter Stewart, who enters his eighth season at Peninsula with a 114-87 record overall. “You can’t wait until the end of January.”
Perhaps it’s the right kind of experience for the Pirates.
After all, last year’s team never really did find itself despite returning seven sophomores from the previous season (a 25-8 team).
The Pirates stumbled out of the blocks early and never could recover, finishing 10-17 overall and missing the playoffs for the first time since 2002-03.
It was only the second time a Peter Stewart-coached team fell short of reaching the NWAACC tournament, forcing the Bobby Knight disciple to re-examine how he runs his program.
“There are certain things that I didn’t do with the guys that it bites you,” said Stewart, a finalist for the head coaching job at the University of Mary (N.D) last spring.
“I think part of that might be complacency.
“We built something here that’s pretty good and sometimes . . . you have to constantly inspect what you expect. Maybe winning the conference three out of the five years, you go ‘This is pretty easy.’ Well, it’s not.
“And maybe you look the other way on some things, because now you’re at that point where, ‘It’s just going to happen.’ Well, it doesn’t, and it didn’t.”
More mature team
Whatever problems with maturity last year’s team had may very well be nonexistent with this year’s.
This is a group that has five players 22 years of age or older, like former Sequim shooting guard Ryan Rutherford.
The 6-foot sophomore played for Peninsula three years ago, averaging 2.7 points per game and 1.0 assists off the bench.
He took a break to pursue other interests in Las Vegas before deciding to come back and renew his college basketball career last winter.
A trio of the incoming freshmen stepped away from basketball to complete Mormon missions. That includes 6-5 post Jason Gamblin, 24, 5-11 point guard Russell Jackson, 23, and 6-4 forward Jeremiah Johnson, 22.
Only freshmen Trevant Musgrow and Bryce Jacobson played high school basketball last winter.
“I think it’s good physically and mentally,” said Rutherford of the team’s older roster. “It’s a lot of mentally tough guys that can handle an ass-chewing and don’t get down on themselves.
“Most of us are adults, we’re not kids anymore. We know what it takes to work.”
Returning sophomore Colton Worley said he’s already noticed the difference in the team’s mind set one month into the season.
“I think they are more focussed and there’s less distractions,” said Worley, who scored 2.43 points per game and grabbed 1.7 rebounds.
“We run through our plays a lot better most of the time. Last year I think we knew them but we didn’t run them. We wanted to play more one-on-one. We’re more of a team this year.”
Stewart echoed Worley’s statements about the team’s offense, saying he envisioned this group working deep into the shot clock to get buckets.
Worley and fellow returning players Jordan Collins (2.04 pgg, 1.71 rpg) and Christian Manzana (3.81 ppg, 4.42 rpg) are already well-versed in Stewart’s motion attack.
The rest are coming along, according to Stewart, with an eye toward January when the NWAACC North Division schedule begins.
Obviously, roles are nowhere near decided. All of that will have to be figured out on the run for the Pirates.
“We’re going to be able to execute,” Stewart said. “We’re really going to be able to understand and execute some sets. We’ve got a good balance. I really like what we have.
“We just have a long ways to go.”