While the season openers for Division I members of the "Carril Cradle" won't come until a week from tonight, former Princeton center Howie Levy's Mercer County Community College Vikings kick off 2010-11 with a pair of games at their home gym on Saturday and Sunday afternoon as part of the Mercer/Burlington Classic.
If you're eager for a basketball fix before Princeton hosts Rutgers, this pair of 2:00 pm ET tipoffs for the defending Region XIX champions versus CCRI and Suffolk-Seldon NY should tide local basketball fans over nicely.
I caught up with Levy briefly on the phone this evening to find out how preparations are going and to preview his team's opening weekend.
I haven't had a chance to come see you guys practice during the preseason. How has the team been looking?
Of the three years, this group is probably the most talented top-to-bottom. We may not have anybody as good as our guy Uros [Kovacevic] last year, but I think as a group we're more talented and probably less stubborn for the most part. They've picked up things pretty quickly and we looked pretty good in our scrimmages.
Despite knowing the dangers of being optimistic about your team's prospects I'm somewhat optimistic.
There's a lot of turnover in Junior College basketball. Who are some players on the Vikings people should keep their eyes out for this season?
We've got a kid named Amir Bell who is 6'5" and transferred from Delaware State. There are two freshmen from Philly - Rodney Walters and Dave Melton. Rodney looks amazingly like Michael Jordan. They're really good.
A couple guys from last year - this kid Gary Carthan who was a backup center is going to play a lot of minutes. Anthony Obery, who was the third guard last year is going to play a lot and we have a kid Jon Jernigan who played two years ago and took time off and is back in school again.
There are probably 10 guys I could put in a game. I don't know if I will, but there are probably 10 guys I would be comfortable playing.
Is prepping for this year noticeably different than year one or year two?
I think we're further advanced - maybe not knowing more but I think they're more willing to play together and pass the ball, so it has been somewhat easier to teach stuff. I think last year we had some guys that were very good at a couple of things so you almost had to change the way you played to play into different guys' strengths and weaknesses.
I think this team, we can sort of play what I would consider "normally," where the ball goes where it goes and the shot is going to be taken by the guy that is open and not necessarily trying to orchestrate things quite as much.
Do you sense your guys are eager to start playing against faces they don't recognize?
We've had three scrimmages which were pretty good but I think they're excited. They seem to have some good feelings for each other. They're actually a pretty pleasant group to be around for the most part. When you have a team that's willing to pass the ball and willing to play defense, they're likely the kind of guys you want to be around.
Finally, tell me about this weekend's games.
We've opened up with this little "mixer," they call it. Us and Burlington play two teams. We don't play each other because we play twice during the regular season. We open with CCRI, Community College of Rhode Island, who is always a really tough team. We split with them last year. They're always picked as one of the top teams in Division II.
I don't know much about Suffolk-Seldon NY. They're going to play at noon tomorrow so I'll know more about them before they play on Sunday!
