Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - First-year team won't lack experience

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Wednesday, October 20, 1999

First-year team won't lack experience
Though season will be Islanders' first, team's players no neophytes
By Mark Zuckerman
Caller-Times

There are those who will be quick to say that Texas A&M-Corpus Christi's basketball team has little to no chance of winning this season in its inaugural campaign.
   Success doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of solid recruiting, hard work and some semblance of tradition before a Division I program can even think about winning games consistently.
   Toby Thompson doesn't have time to wait. Neither do the other six juniors on A&M-Corpus Christi's roster. If they're going to experience success here, it's going to have to happen now.
   "Everybody's making a big deal that this is a first-year program," said Thompson, a point guard from Southwest Christian Junior College. "This is not new to us. We've been playing basketball all our lives."
   Should Ronnie Arrow be looking for experience during the season, the Islander head coach has numerous options. In the backcourt, he has Thompson, Lee Denmon and Arunas Drasutis. Up front, there's small forwards Michael Hicks and Vladimir Ryzhov, plus big men Damian Kirkaldy and Aaron Eneas.
   That doesn't mean Arrow is oozing with confidence.
   "Yes, they are experienced, but they have no D-I experience, and they have no experience whatsoever playing together."
   As an entire team, perhaps not. For three players, though - Hicks, Kirkaldy and Eneas - basketball at A&M-Corpus Christi has become merely an extension of basketball at Bacone Junior College. All three played and starred at the small Oklahoma school, one of the top programs in the country.
   The opportunity to play Division I hoops together, and to have a shot at significant playing time right off the bat, was too good to pass up for the trio.
   "That's one of the main reasons we came here," Kirkaldy said. "If we went to a bigger-name program, we would have had to sit on the bench for all year. Here, we have a chance to play."
   The Bacone three have meshed well with their fellow upperclassmen, and as a group, the seven juniors are making a concerted effort to set an example for A&M-Corpus Christi's four freshmen and two sophomores.
   But Arrow knows it's going to take time for the entire roster of 13 players to become one team. How long?
   "I wish I knew that," Arrow said. "I'd sleep better at night."

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