Game Notes
Kentucky Wesleyan men's basketball coach Todd Lee liked what he's seen from his team during the exhibition season.
Now, as Union College invades tonight for KWC's bona fide season opener, Lee is hoping to see more of the same.
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. at the Sportscenter.
"One thing I really like about us is that we play as a team," Lee said. "We share the ball well at the offensive end, we play pretty good team defense, and we hit the boards hard. It's a group effort in all respects, and that's something you really like to see.
"Against Union, I just want our guys to continue to listen and learn, continue to strive to get better. It's going to take us a while to get where we need to be, but we need to keep moving in that direction."
The Panthers, who narrowly defeated Georgetown before losing competitive games at South Carolina and Western Kentucky in the preseason, are an intriguing mixture of veteran and first-year players.
"It's interesting," Lee said. "Every one of our returning players have improved so much, but against Western it was three of our new guys who led us in scoring.
"We've got a lot of new people and they're doing a good job working with our returning personnel."
Starters for KWC against Union figure to be junior center Dominique Dawson (13.3 ppg), junior forward Donovan Johnson (10.3 ppg) and a trio of guards -- senior Cornbread Maxwell (6.7), senior Kreig Oxley (9.3 ppg) and freshman Lucas Barker (5.7 ppg).
Two reserves, meanwhile, have averaged in double digits, thus far: junior guard Rico Ferguson (12.3 ppg) and senior forward Dazmond Starke (10.3 ppg).
"We have nine or 10 guys who can play," Lee said. "We're going to be more balanced in all ways than we were last season."
Union is led by junior guard Tarik Smith, who averages 23.8 points per game. Others expected to be in the Bulldogs' starting lineup include junior guard Matthew Thomas (9.3), senior guard Josh Smith (8.5 ppg) and a pair of junior forwards -- Sergio Gonzalez (17.8 ppg) and Archie Adams (6.3 ppg).
"Transition defense will be important for us against Union," Lee said, "They have a couple of real quick guards who can get it up and down the floor.
"Early on, though, there are still so many things we're trying to learn about our own team -- a lot of our emphasis will be on that. We trying to figure out a lot of things about ourselves, especially at the offensive end."
