When the Odessa College men’s basketball team took the court at last season’s NJCAA National Tournament, a mostly different group of players comprised the squad.
This year, head coach Kris Baumann and his coaching staff get a fresh start with 15 newcomers looking to adjust quickly and find their roles within the system.
Tre Richardson, Shakeem Alcindor and Yohamid Rodriguez are the only holdovers from last season’s roster.
Only Richardson and Alcindor received significant playing time, with Rodriguez playing a reserve role off the bench.
“It’s pretty much a whole new crew,” Baumann said. “It’s a lot of new faces, usually we have a bunch of transfers. We don’t have as many as we’ve had in the past, we’ve got a lot of freshmen.
“It’s been a really fun group to work with, they’ve really worked hard in the fall and they’re excited to get out and play this weekend and open up the college basketball season.”
The new-look Wranglers are set to kick things against Hutchinson Community College at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Hutch Sports Arena in Hutchinson, Kansas.
Of the 15 new players, three have experience at the collegiate level.
Daniss Jenkins, Dontrell Hewlett and Mike Rivera joined the Wranglers after earning some time on the court at other junior colleges and universities.
When the team took the court for practice Tuesday, each player looked to be on the same page when it came to the pace they would use to complete the drills Baumann assigned.
The movements were fast and fluid, like the team has been together for longer than the fall.
Jenkins said he enjoys being in a setting where the practices will have high intensity because it’s something he got used to in two seasons at the University of the Pacific.
“I told Coach [Baumann] before, ‘You make me play hard all the time,’” Jenkins said. “That’s one of the things that I like, so I’m loving the high intensity.”
Even though a large majority of this year’s group hasn’t played together in games that count, Baumann believes every player fits what he wants to do when it comes to rotating and applying pressure.
He credited assistant coach Evan Eustachy for the work he did over the summer in recruiting and putting the team together.
Jenkins said he was drawn to the Odessa College program after he talked with Baumann and Eustachy, and realized his goals aligned with theirs.
Now the 6-foot-3 guard from Dallas wants to uphold the standard that comes with playing for a tradition-rich program.
Jenkins believes this year’s group can come together quickly and maintain the program’s level of competition on the national stage.
“I think we really have a chance,” Jenkins said. “If we just lock in each and every night, follow the game plans and get our practice onto the game floor, I think we’ll be fine.”
The Wranglers are coming into the season ranked No. 12 in the NJCAA preseason poll and Baumann believes the team’s highly competitive schedule can help it get boost into the top 10.
He also hopes the tough nonconference slate can help Odessa College when it gets into Western Junior College Athletic Conference play.
Odessa College’s first WJCAC game of the season will be Dec. 1 against New Mexico Junior College, another team ranked within the NJCAA’s top 25 to start the season.
“We’ve got a really, really tough schedule and I put this schedule together because I thought this group could handle it,” Baumann said. “We’re going to be challenged, we always get challenged in our league because of how talented our league is but our out of conference schedule is going to be really, really tough.”
The Wranglers will be on the road to kick off their campaign until Nov. 17 when they play Trinity Valley Community College at 7 p.m. at the OC Sports Center.
>> Follow Chris Amaya on Twitter at @OA_CAmaya
