Last season, William & Mary basketball made history by becoming the first team to shoot better than 80 percent from the free throw line, 50 percent from the field and 40 on 3-pointers.
This year, the key to the Tribe’s season could be defense.
The Tribe went 19-2 (11-7 in CAA) last year and made the conference tournament semifinals.
They are the only team to post double-digit conference wins and finish in the top four of the regular-season standings each of the past five seasons.
So winning a conference title and reaching the NCAA tournament for the first time is realistic.
“I think we have the talent,” said senior captain Paul Rowley, one of six returning players. “We’ve had the talent in previous years and we’ve made a lot of strides on the defensive side of the ball. I think that’s going to be huge for us.”
Coach Tony Shaver agrees.
“We hope to pick up our pressure, our intensity on the defensive end a little bit,” he said of his team, which, in the CAA preseason poll, was picked to finish fourth.
Three starters – juniors Nathan Knight, Justin Pierce and Matt Milon – are back.
Knight, who averaged 18.5 points and 7.3 rebounds last year, and Pierce (14.7 and 8.6) were named to the preseason all-CAA second team. Knight, from Syracuse, New York, also was named to the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award watch list. The award goes to the nation’s top center.
“It says a lot about this league that those two guys are not first-team preseason all-conference players,” Shaver said. “They are really good players.”
The returners will be joined by six freshmen, but it will take time for them to learn how W&M does things.
“We have seen the difficulties of it in the first (few) weeks of practice,” Shaver said. “Every drill is new. Every defensive fundamental is new. Every cut is new. So we have to explain a lot to these guys. But I do love the confidence of this group. I think good things can be ahead for us.”
The first chance to see that will be Nov. 7 when the Tribe open the season at home against High Point at 7 p.m.
“We have some young guys that I think are good, that have shown that in practice so far,” Shaver said. “In some cases, better athletes than we’ve had (and) that allows us to do a little more.”
