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LOCATION: Brooklyn Heights, NY
CONFERENCE: Northeast (NEC)
LAST SEASON: 20-8 (.714)
CONFERENCE RECORD: 16-4 (2nd)
STARTERS LOST/RETURNING: 1/4
NICKNAME: Terriers
COLORS: Red & Blue
HOMECOURT: Pope Physical Ed. Center (1,250)
COACH: Ron Ganulin (Long Island '68)
record at school 91-129 (8 years)
career record 118-152 (10 years)
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ASSISTANTS: Glenn Braica (Queens '88)
Ed Custodio (St. Francis-NY '97)
Larry Wingate (St. Francis-NY '86)
TEAM WINS: (last 5 years) 9-9-13-15-20
RPI (last 5 years) 281-286-242-189-112
1998-99 FINISH: Lost in conference semifinal.
ESPN.com Clubhouse
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St. Francis (N.Y.) coach Ron Ganulin has four starters back from last year's 20-8 squad. Unfortunately for him, one of them isn't 1998-99 NEC Most Valuable Player Ray Minlend. Minlend was the nation's second-leading scorer (24.3 ppg) and the man who made the NEC's highest-scoring offense (80.2 ppg) go. Thanks in large part to Minlend's productivity, the Terriers were able to post their most victories in a season in the last 43 years. After a few failed NBA tryouts, Minlend will either try his hand overseas or put his accounting degree to use (bet on the former), while the Terriers try to stay among the league's top dogs. It won't be easy. Just ask Long Island U, which tumbled a bit in the NEC pecking order last year after its scoring ace (Charles Jones) left for literally greener pastures. The guess here is that, while the Terriers will slip, they don't figure to fall as far as LIU did last year. The reason? Four starters are back and Ganulin lined up some quality replacement parts, particularly at Minlend's old two-guard spot, where junior-college imports Steven Howard and Jamel Smiley come aboard. The best of four returning starters is Angel Santana, a 6-7 senior from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, who played in 27 of the Terriers' 28 games and was second on the team in scoring (14.0 ppg) and added 3.7 rebounds per game. Although Santana played a serious second fiddle to Minlend, his accomplishments didn't go unnoticed, as he was chosen to the All-NEC second team. Santana smashed the St. Francis single-season record with 83 three-point field goals, and is the Terriers' career leader in that category with 194. Santana missed his biggest three-point shot of the 1998-99 season, though. With two seconds left in a 68-66 NEC semifinal loss to Mount St. Mary's, Santana couldn't hit a wide-open three that would have earned the Terriers a spot in the NEC title game. Santana enters his senior season needing just 13 points to reach the 1,000-point mark for his career.
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Blue Ribbon Analysis |
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BACKCOURT C+ BENCH/DEPTH B
FRONTCOURT B- INTANGIBLES D
Even without scoring machine Ray Minlend, veteran coach Ron Ganulin figures to keep the Terriers among the NEC's upper echelon of teams. A regular-season title probably isn't in the cards in 1999-2000, because Maryland-Baltimore County (last year's regular-season champion) and Mount St. Mary's (the 1999 NEC tournament winner) return too much firepower. Look for St. Francis (N.Y.) to battle Central Connecticut State for third place in the league. If highly-touted JUCO import Steven Howard can at least partially fill the hightops of Minlend, then the Terriers could develop into that one sleeper team that no one wants to face come NEC tournament time. |
Rejoining Santana on the perimeter will be 6-5 junior swingman Richy Dominguez (7.2 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 33 assists, 29 steals) and 5-10 junior point guard Greg Nunn (4.9 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 151 assists, 71 steals). Dominguez, a native of Choco, Columbia, played in all 28 games, starting 24. He shot .411 percent from three-point range, finishing the year with an 11-for-23 surge in the final seven games. The Terriers' most versatile player, he played four positions during the course of the season. Dominguez started both games of the NEC Tournament at forward and saw significant time in those games as the backup point guard. A consistent rebounder, he collected at least five rebounds in 15 games and led the Terriers in rebounding nine times. Nunn is a classic pass-first point guard. He finished the 1998-99 season with 20 more assists (151) than points scored (131). After logging nine assists and 15 turnovers in the first three games of the season, Nunn went on and posted an exceptional 142-66 ratio (2.15-1) over the rest of the season. Nunn did not score, but recorded 26 assists, over one four-game stretch in February. He will look to shoot a little bit more this season with the shot-happy Minlend gone. The fifth and final returning starter is 6-11, 245-pound junior Herberth Reyes from San Antonio, Venezuela. The rugged Reyes (7.6 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 48 blocked shots, 22 steals) led St. Francis in rebounding and blocked shots. He scored in double figures eight times and reached double figures in rebounds four times. Reyes shot .594 percent from the field, the best accuracy by a Terrier player in four years, and climbed into sixth place on the career block list with 69. That came after swatting away 48 that tied the fourth-best season total in school history. The problem? Reyes sometimes gets too infatuated with the blocked shot. As a result, he committed a team-high 101 fouls in 27 games and fouled out of a team-high eight games last year. Which leaves one burning question: Who will replace the high-scoring Minlend? Our guess is that one of the JC imports either 6-3 junior Steven Howard or 5-11 junior Jamel Smiley (a former teammate of Terrier point guard Greg Nunn on the Long Island Panthers AAU team) will get the first crack. Howard is a highly touted newcomer from Jefferson Community College, a 26-4 squad last season. Howard leaves behind a full trophy case at Jefferson, where he was selected first-team Division III JC All-American, the Region III Player of the Year, and the Mid-State Conference Player of the Year. If nothing else, Howard knows his way to the basket. He averaged 28.5 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 5.0 apg, and 3.0 spg last season at Jefferson. Despite his impeccable credentials, Howard won't be handed the job. That's because Smiley returned east in hopes of reuniting with Nunn in the Terriers' backcourt. Smiley averaged 12.0 points, 6.0 assists, and 3.0 steals for a 23-11 team at Southwestern College in California. His team won the Pacific Coast Conference title with a 13-1 record. Smiley averaged 12.0 points and 10.0 assists as a senior at Long Island Lutheran (1996-97) and led his team to the Class A New York State Championship. Two others who will figure in the backcourt mix are one foreign import (6-5 junior Tanel Tein from Estonia) and one in-state product (5-10 freshman Tim Rollerson from Mount Vernon, N.Y.). Tein (5.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 41 assists, 20 steals) appeared in all 26 regular-season games before missing the NEC Tournament with an injury. Tein earned NEC Newcomer of the Week honors in mid-December after scoring 22 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to help the Terriers to a victory at Iona on Dec. 15. His specialty is long-distance dialing he shot a school-record .452 percent from three-point range and did not miss a free throw (eight for eight) in the calendar year 1999. He will be a zone-buster off the bench. Rollerson, the only freshman on the roster, averaged 16.0 points, 6.0 assists, and 5.0 steals for Mount Vernon (N.Y.) High School last season. Those numbers earned him Westchester County Player-of-the-Year honors and helped his team to an impressive 20-4 mark. Another possible scenario for replacing Minlend is moving Dominguez to the vacant two-guard spot and starting 6-6 junior Henry LaLane at small forward. LaLane appeared in 27 games, making one start. In that one start, versus Robert Morris, he sank his only field goal of the game (a three-pointer) and capped a comeback from 18 points behind, only to see the Terriers lose at the buzzer. LaLane also had a buzzer-beating three-pointer in a comeback victory over Monmouth and finished the game with a season-high 22 points. LaLane heats up faster than a microwave. He made six three-point shots in that game and in a victory over Wagner. In all, LaLane scored in double figures 12 times and reached the 20-point mark on four occasions. One Achilles heel is that he shot only 58 percent from the line after making good on 80 percent as a freshman. Backup minutes at the forward spots figure to be gobbled up by 6-8 newcomer Cory Underwood and a threesome of returnees: 6-7 senior Gerald Walker, 6-7 senior Marcel Dimbeng, and 6-8 senior Priit Ilver. Underwood is expected to see considerable time at forward despite a two-year layoff. He averaged 14 points and 11 rebounds as a junior at Monsignor McClancy High School, and was an honorable mention All-Brooklyn/Queens selection. Underwood then transferred to Forest Hills (N.Y.) High School for his senior year, but did not play because of transfer regulations. He sat out last season at St. Francis (N.Y.) for academic reasons. He is a fine prospect who played his AAU ball for the legendary Riverside Church and Long Island Panthers teams. Walker (2.7 ppg, 0.9 rpg) appeared in 25 games last season, all as a reserve. The junior college import showed a fine shooting touch, connecting on .475 percent of his field-goal attempts, including six of 12 shots from three-point range. When given a real chance to play, Walker played well. Consider that he scored 49 of his 67 points in the nine games in which he played at least 10 minutes (5.4 ppg in those games). Dimbeng is another returnee who will push hard for reserve minutes. Dimbeng (1.3 ppg, 1.5 rpg, 7 blocks, 3 steals) started the first three games of the season before making 17 appearances off the bench in the season's final 25 games. Injuries limited Ilver's playing time to nine games. Ilver (1.3 ppg, 0.8 rpg) scored six points and snared three rebounds versus St. John's and added three rebounds in a victory over Mount St. Mary's on January 4. He missed 14 of the final 16 games, including the last eight.
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