David LaRock
Published: November 9, 2005
The 2005-06 Men’s Pirate Basketball team begins its fight for the Panhandle Conference Championship with a series of early season non-conference games to sharpen skills. The Panhandle Conference has a strong reputation for being the toughest conference in the nation.
“The Panhandle Conference is one of the toughest junior college conferences in the country,” PJC Head Basketball Coach Paul Swanson said. “There will be no easy teams this season. Nobody seems to have a weakness.” He attributes the strength of the Panhandle teams to “extreme balance,” meaning that defense and offense are often equally good.
With nine freshmen and only a couple of returning sophomores from last year’s team (Phillip Wallace and Clinton Kilbert), this year will be a challenging one. The team is young, and Swanson is looking forward to seeing what the team can do.
“This is by far the youngest team we ever had. Our biggest weakness is youth and all that brings with it. It will take some time for this team to jell together,” Swanson said.
“They have to learn to accept new roles, as opposed to the different roles they had in high school. These players were extremely talented in high school; they just have to adjust to the intensity of the college level.”
PJC basketball statistician Michael Gilbert is excited about this team’s offensive skill, as compared to previous teams.
“Our team can shoot. Straight up, we got some shooters. This is the best shooting team we’ve had in a while,” Gilbert said.
“We are normally the bigger team year after year. It will be interesting to see how this smaller squad will play. We are quick, so we definitely have to play an up beat tempo game.”
With such an upbeat style of play, the Pirates will need seven players to play a lot of minutes. Gilbert and Swanson have no idea what the first-string team might look like, because of the nine incoming freshman and new player transfers.
Gilbert sees a lot of potential and untapped resources in all this youth. Players such as Phillip Wallace and Clinton Kilbert, who are coming off major injuries last year, will be an added boost of experience for this young team.
“Phillip [Wallace] is a leader. He started last year till we lost him in the tournament last year. Bradley [Skipper] has an excellent shot, and could make a huge difference. He is from Pace, so he is definitely under the radar,” Gilbert said.
Swanson said due to the lack of size and height this team has, they would be more guard oriented. With a little more than half of the team consisting of guards, speed and quickness are key strengths.
Swanson also added that expectations are always high and that players try their best every game.
“Our goal is to get 1 percent better every day.”
