LIVE STREAMING | LIVE STATS
 
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – The Nova Southeastern University men's basketball team opens up the 2015-16 campaign on Monday night at 7:30 p.m. when they host nearby St. Thomas University, the first of three games in six days during a busy opening week for the team.
 
The Sharks will welcome in the Bobcats, an NAIA squad out of Miami Gardens that is 1-0 on the young season, to the NSU Arena on Monday. NSUSharks.com had a chance to converse with head coach Gary Tuell, about to embark on his 12th season atop the program:
 
Q: Entering your 12th season at NSU, how would you describe the transition from last year to this upcoming season?
 
GT: "To be honest, the past year has been both physically and emotionally exhausting. We had so many distractions that tested our resolve as a basketball family and definitely drained a lot of energy from me personally and from our program. We lost a valuable assistant, Brandon Crone, who returned to his alma mater, Butler University, to join their coaching staff a few days before the '14-15 season began.  We experienced disappointment with Casey Carroll going through back surgery and two of our players suffered personal tragedies with the passing of their fathers. We brought (new assistant coach) Jordan Fee on board in the spring to replace Coach Crone, and we're excited about his addition to our family, but going through the hiring process and helping Jordan get settled and comfortable doesn't happen without extra effort. We sort of went from an exhausting season to an assistant coach search to a busy summer recruiting to bringing seven new student-athletes into the university and helping them settle in to planning and preparing for the '15-16 season. There really hasn't been any opportunity to take a break or recharge my batteries. The past year has been a blur, a lot of grinding and a lot of pushing forward in the face of some difficult challenges. But ready or not, here we are with a new staff, a lot of new players, standing at the threshold of a new season with new challenges and new dreams. It's exciting. It has been a difficult and tiring 12 months, but we're excited and we're ready to get going.  Coach Fee and graduate assistant coach Marquise Kiffin have done a great job in the preseason. Our players have worked hard and done a great job. I couldn't be happier with the work ethic or the progress our guys have made the past two months. We're a long way from being the basketball team we think we can eventually become, but if the preseason has proven anything to me, it's that we have a great group of guys who have a chance to be a very good basketball team. There is a lot of youth and inexperience in the group, but there is also a lot of potential."
 
Q: You chose to go with intrasquad scrimmages to prepare for the regular season. With those three games in the books, what positives and negatives would you say came out of them?
 
GT: "The intrasquad games were great for our younger players. They got opportunities to play 25, 30 minutes a game with officials and we, as coaches, got an opportunity to evaluate them in ways that we might not have been able to if we had played exhibition games with outside competition. I don't know yet how deep we are in talent, but we have a lot of depth and we want to use that depth throughout the year. So dividing our squad into two units for three Blue-White games was a good experience for everybody. If I could change one thing I would probably play two intrasquad games and one exhibition game because the guys were tired of seeing each other by the third Blue-White game. We were emotionally flat in the third game, but it was still a valuable learning experience for everyone. There were positives and negatives, obviously, that came out of those games, but most importantly we learned a lot about our guys, about our chemistry, and about the progress both the veterans and the newcomers have made over the preseason."
  
Q: Given that all 15 players got that much significant on-court experience, how might that translate to the start of the season?
 
GT: "The purpose of playing the three intrasquad games was to help us develop our younger players. We're going to play as many people as we can throughout the season, and that will begin with our opener against St. Thomas University on Monday night. Guys need to have an opportunity to play so they can show us what they can do and show us if they're ready to contribute. If they contribute in positive ways they will continue to play. If they aren't ready to contribute they're going to find that out in the games and at least they'll understand why they may not be getting as much playing time a month from now. Our hope is that a large majority of these guys will be able to help us early and often. They need opportunities to play so they can show us if they are ready, or so they can see why we don't think they're ready. If we lose some games early in the year because we're playing younger guys who might not be ready, so be it. That doesn't bother me. They need opportunities to play if they're going to grow and develop and help us be a better team in January and February when it matters the most. Depth is good. Quality depth is great. Hopefully we can develop the entire roster and find enough guys who can contribute so that we have quality depth as the season goes on."
 
Q: In the SSC preview, you mentioned your "Big Three." How vital are Chris Page (Sr., Planfield, Ind.), Casey Carroll (R-Jr., Youngstown, Ohio) and Harrison Goodrick (Jr., Sydney, Australia) to this team not only on the court, but off?
 
GT: "Chris Page, Casey Carroll and Harrison Goodrick are the foundation of this team. They are the rocks we will build this team around. All three guys are hard workers, committed and leaders, each in his own unique way. Chris has really elevated his game over the summer. His work ethic is at an all-time high.  Harrison continues to develop and improve and has a chance to be a very good player. Casey is coming off back surgery and with that comes issues. But he's a warrior and he will give whatever his body allows him to give. The three of them are great examples on the floor and in the locker room and believe me, it's comforting for the old coach to have those three guys on my side when we go into games. We need them to be consistent and to be positive encouragers for the rest of the team, but we also need them to be patient with the young players and with the coaching staff as we develop the whole group. They understand it; they get it. I'm blessed to have those three with me."
 
Q: Who else has stepped up as locker room leaders after the loss of four extremely experienced veteran graduates? And past those three players, what other returnees do you see as making a step up this season? 
 
GT: "First of all, you're right to mention the seniors we lost. Maurice Fuller, Stian Berg, Justin Jeangerard and Brian Cahill were four very good players for us over the past three or four years. They started all or most of our games for three straight years. That's a huge loss. I'm amazed that we were voted fourth in the preseason coaches' poll because other than Florida Southern, who lost all five starters, I don't think anyone in the league lost as much through graduation as we did. It's very difficult to replace the character and chemistry and experience those four guys brought to our program. I miss them every day, but that's the nature of college basketball. Guys come into your program, touch your program, enrich your life, and then – poof! – they're gone. They move on to more important things. So other guys have to come in and replace them and leave their own footprints in the program. Jonathan Back, a junior walk-on from Carisle, Ohio, doesn't get a lot of minutes, but has a huge impact on our team. He's our hardest worker and an outstanding leader in the locker room and on the court. He leads by example, he leads with humor and he leads with an honest, no-nonsense approach because of his love for team and love for the game. Regardless of how many minutes he plays, Jon has a huge impact on our team every single day. Troy Spears (So., Martinsville, Ind.) has probably been our most consistent and best player in preseason. He may not be spectacular, but he's just a blue-collar worker who goes about his business and gets things done at both ends of the floor. Mike Chalas (Sr., Pembroke Pines, Fla.) has also been very good in the preseason, is much more comfortable in our system, and has improved tremendously. All the returnees have improved. Jon Back, Jordan Stookey (So., Warsaw, Ind.), Remi Farrell (Jr., Woodbridge, Conn.), those three guys are walk-ons who have improved to the point where they make valuable contributions every day in practice … that wasn't the case last year. But other than Chris, Casey and Harrison, both Troy and Mike have probably made the largest jumps."
 
Q: What newcomers do you expect to step up sooner rather than later?
 
GT: "Nick Pendergast (Sr., Bridgewater, Conn.), a transfer from Temple, has been fun to watch. He plays hard, competes at both ends of the floor, does little things that make a difference and will have a huge impact on our team as he learns our system and as his comfort level increases. All the freshmen have had their moments, but I've probably been most impressed with Dwayne Gibson, Jr. (Indianapolis, Ind.) and Austin Marciniak (Uniontown, Ohio) in preseason. Both those guys have been quick learners, have shown that they grasp what we're doing, and both are very intelligent players. I like our four freshmen – Dwayne, Austin, Nikita Orap (Moscow, Russia) and Pat Huffine (Indianapolis, Ind.) – but going into the season, Dwayne and Austin have made the smoothest transition into our system. BJ Edwards (So., Fort Myers, Fla.), a transfer from Jacksonville, has been a wonderful leader and has been very good. He works as hard as anyone, learns quickly, and everyone on the team has embraced BJ. He has a lot of talent, but more importantly he has a personality and a demeanor that makes people want to follow him, hang out with him and play with him. I've been happy with all the guys, but those are the newcomers who have stood out most often in our practices."
 
Q: How different is it to prepare this early for the conference slate, without looking past St. Thomas?
 
GT: "Because the Sunshine State Conference is in the process of expanding to 11 teams with the addition of provisional members Palm Beach Atlantic and Embry-Riddle, we all face challenges in scheduling that are new and problematic. I've been working in college athletics for 40-plus years and this is my 29th year as a head coach, yet I've never been in a conference where we're playing league games the opening week of the season. Having said that, we're doing our best to preach patience, exercise patience and develop our team the same way we've always done it. We're going to approach the first five games of the season – regardless of whether they are conference or non-conference opponents – the same way we always have. We're going to use those games to play multiple lineups and give different guys opportunities to play under pressure so that we can evaluate them and decide who and what will be best for us down the road. We have three games this week, beginning with our opener against St. Thomas on Monday night, followed by league games with Lynn on Wednesday and at Saint Leo on Saturday. That's about as tough an opening three games as anyone could possibly play at this level. But in all honesty, I have spent very little time thinking about any of those three teams. I saw St. Thomas in their season opener and I know how good they are. They would be very, very good in our league. They have a 6-10, 300-pound center who is gifted and they have a whole slew of guards who can shoot and handle and have excellent athleticism. They are a very talented team. And they have a special player in Mike Walker, who scored 42 points in their season opener, including 33 in the second half. He might be the most explosive guard we face all year. But our total focus right now is on ourselves. We have so much to work on, so much to learn, and so many new players that we can't afford to spend much time worrying about who plays for the other teams or what they do. We want to focus on what we do. We know we're going to make a ton of mistakes and we want to use the first couple weeks of the season to learn from our mistakes and correct the problems that show up. We have about 25 percent of our offense and defense in place at this point. We're nowhere near what we hope to be in six weeks. And we'll never get where we want to go if we panic over early season games or devote our attention to what other teams do. We need to focus on ourselves right now. If we can do that and win a game or two, great. If we have to lose some early games while we work and build for the future, then that's fine, too. St. Thomas will be a very good team and a very tough opponent for us, but we're just happy to see some different people and have the opportunity to work on our stuff against other people."
 
Q: Is there any thought back to the overtime loss to St. Thomas two years ago ahead of Monday's game?
 
GT: "The only things I remember about losing at St. Thomas two years ago was that we played extremely well for about 30 minutes, which was a huge improvement over the way we had played in the games leading up that one. We had really struggled as a team in our first two or three games but we started to find ourselves and started to 'get it' in the St. Thomas game. But other than that, and being sick and not being able to do much to help my team that night, I don't remember much about it. Having been the head coach at St. Thomas for five seasons back in the early '90s, I have a deep appreciation for their program and always enjoy playing them and seeing old friends.  Patrick Gayle has done a great job coaching and leading their program and I'm proud of him."
 
Q: Finally, what, if anything, is the same or different about your 29th first game as a coach?
 
GT: "I've been very lucky and blessed to be able to coach for as long as I have. I don't take anything for granted, and believe me I'm appreciative of the support I receive from my Director of Athletics, Mike Mominey, and the support I receive from the administration at NSU. I work for a boss who values high character, high academic student-athletes and who encourages us to run our program the right way, do the right things, and recruit the right kind of young people. That's not always the case in this business and I'm enormously grateful for the opportunity. I know I'm a much better coach, much wiser person, going into my 29th year as a head coach than I was when I started out in this profession. I wish I could go back and coach all my teams over again, knowing what I know today, because I would definitely do some things differently, treat my players differently, take time to appreciate them more and show them a little more love. I've been blessed to coach some of the greatest young men a coach could ever hope to have and I'm sure I would do a better job encouraging them and making them feel valuable than I did when I was a younger and not-as-smart coach. Things have changed so much in coaching over the years. And I've tried to change, especially the last few years. I've always loved my players, but I regret not always being a better encourager and showing that love to them more often than I did when I was younger. There were too many times when I got caught up in negativity and it hurt our teams. I hate that. Guys respond to positive talk and positive encouragement and they need to be loved, and I've learned that over the years. Some of my former players joke with me that I've gotten soft in my old age, but that's not true. I've never been soft and never will be. I'm as competitive and driven as ever, and I'm nothing if not a competitor. But I've learned to be more patient, kinder and to look for and focus on the positive things rather than dwell on the negatives. I wish I had shared those things with past teams and players, but I'm blessed to have a great group of guys on this team who give me a lot of respect and a lot of love. And I enjoy returning the respect and love to them. I'm having more fun coaching today than ever before. And that's all due to the players I have the good fortune to coach every day. They are a great group of high character guys who make it fun to be their coach. I tell them all the time that my job is to love them and their job is to love each other. If you can get that right, then you can have a great season regardless of the wins or losses. I'm blessed to begin my 29th year as a head coach, and I'm especially blessed by the players on this team."