LEWISBURG -- Dave Paulsen would love to brag about his new Bucknell men's squad molding into the kind of team he always envisioned. Problem is the first-year coach can't, basically because he's still not sure just what he has.
As he prepares for his first season in Lewisburg following an ultra-successful stint at Division III Williams College, Paulsen has spent the majority of the preseason trying to find enough to players to practice. Even before his first practice, Paulsen got devastating news that junior guard Stephen Tyree, the Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year last season, would miss all of the 2008-09 season after tearing an ACL. Once practice started, more starters went down and some returning from offseason injuries were not quite ready. There were times in the preseason when the Bison had just six or seven scholarship players healthy enough to practice.
"The assistant coaches were practicing just so we could give the guys a good, competitive look," said Paulsen. "But now they are all sore and some of them are hurt."
Tyree has been out since practice started and other key returnees like Jason Vegotsky and G.W. Boon have missed significant practice time. Vegotsky is expected to be in the starting lineup for tonight's opener at Maryland while Boon is questionable. While so many key components missing workouts would be a concern in any season, it is especially disconcerting when you consider Paulsen has no hold-overs from Pat Flannery's coaching staff, so everything is new to the players and coaches.
"The injuries have impacted the way we will play the game because we will be without some key players on the court. But it's had an even bigger impact on the way that it affects practice. We all place a high value on practices, but when it's a new coach and a new squad and a new staff, those preseason practices are just so important.
"We are way behind where we need to be and where I'd like to be in terms of implementing our system, but are probably even further behind in terms of our competitiveness, and that's alarming to me."
Three seniors return to the squad this season although all three of them have had some sort of injury issues since the end of last season. Vegotsky, who missed the first seven games of the 07-08 season with a stress fracture in his foot, had offseason thumb surgery and has only been practicing a week or so. After injuring his knee last season, Josh Linthicum had elbow surgery and was back for preseason workouts and will start at center tonight, while Justin Castleberry, the returning leading scorer for the Bison, is back after healing up from various bumps and bruises.
"It's not going to look perfect the first day, but as long as we keep improving, that's the most important thing," said Castleberry, who averaged double figures a year ago, scoring more than 18 points six times. That is just the kind of talk Paulsen wants to hear from his players.
"It's about the process as coaches and a team," he said. "No matter what we are facing, we have to try to get better every day and be as good as we can be, however good that is. Any time I felt good about a season, we came close to reaching our full potential. Whenever I look at a season negatively, it wasn't that other teams were better than us, it was us not turning into the best team we could be."
Paulsen and his new coaching staff have spent the preseason trying to implement a new offense, a more up-tempo style than the Bison ran under former coach Pat Flannery.
With the injuries, the process has been slowed, however.
"Things have been a little different," said sophomore point guard Daryl Shazier. "We're pushing the ball more and getting up and down the court.
"It's a little more open," said Castleberry. "Anytime your coach wants to push the ball, it's exciting because it is going to give you more opportunities."
"The process is going much more slowly, we are far behind in things that we need to do well because of all the guys hurt," said Paulsen. "The hallmarks under Pat were defense and passion and intensity and those are what I need to be the hallmarks of the program now. I am concerned that the learning curve on the new stuff has taken so much time, we don't have the defensive focus or the toughness that our teams need to have."
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