It could be said that the Shippensburg University men’s basketball team had a poor season in 2013-14.

After all, the Raider squad closed out the season with a 3-23 overall record, posting a mark of 1-15 in the division and recording an abysmal -10.7 scoring margin on average per game.

A year later, with one matchup to go before the Raiders either make the playoffs or miss them by barely a game, Shippensburg has an excellent chance of closing out the year with a .500 record as they match up against 2-24 Cheyney on Wednesday. For you statistics people that’s a season record improvement of .385, and a scoring margin increase of 12.6 points per contest.

With those kinds of improvements it is hard to believe that the team’s leading scorer by 153 total points, Joe Lococo, transferred to a different school at the end of the ’13-14 season, or that Sam Pygatt, an integral and high energy part of the Raiders, fell to injury barely over half way through the year.

They did get standout center Dylan Edgar back from injury however, and they picked up a few freshmen, some really good freshmen as it turns out.

Edgar, a senior this season, didn’t played a single minute of basketball for SU last year, almost certainly contributing to the team’s struggles. The Mechanicsburg product underwent knee surgery during the preseason and was forced to redshirt. The Raider defense paid the price, allowing 278 more points that year than the offense could score and 523 more than the current season’s total so far.

Before Edgar’s injury the 6 foot, 10 inch center ranked second on the team in points with a 13.5 average per contest, led the team in rebounds with 7.4 per game and ranked third in PSAC play with a 55.4 shooting percentage.

“That extra year game me some time to mature, and to watch from the sidelines and get a different perspective,” Edgar said.

“Now that he’s back on the court, it’s always great to have a post presence, someone you can go to and know that you’re going to get either a high-percentage shot or get to the foul line,” Shippensburg coach Chris Fite added, “And then on the defensive end, most rebounds that come off you can be fairly confident that he’s going to grab them. We certainly have taken advantage of that this year.”

The numbers back up Fite’s observations, as Edgar averaged almost a double-double in 2014-15, posting team highs in points with 15.9 and handling 9.1 boards to go with 64.4 percent field-goal shooting. He also joined the 1000-point club this season in a January matchup, and now has contributed 1171 total points during his career at SU.

Coming into 2013-14, his first year at the helm of the Raiders, Fite had high hopes of creating a winning culture in the locker room, but he had to build chemistry among his team as well as learn the in’s and out’s as a head coach at a new school.

“Myself as a first-year coach last year I wasn’t naive enough to feel as though I had it all figured out,” Fite said. “As tough as that experience was to go through, I feel as though it was a steep learning curve for me. I learned a lot from dealing with the adversity that we had to go through, and I certainly feel that it served our team well this year.”

Despite the first-year struggles there is no way the 6 foot, 9 inch former 2000-point clubber out of Rochester College can be viewed as underqualified. Eleven seasons and four All-Star appearances playing professional basketball in Europe, and eight years as assistant coach at IUP gives Fite as much qualification as any first-year coach in the league. It only took a year to demonstrate the value of that potential.

November 2014 brought reasons to be optimistic for coach Fite and company. Along with the return of Edgar, sophomore Abe Massaley had a standout freshman season and would start at guard, averaging 9.8 points per game while totaling 101 assists. Junior Jay Hardy was back as well after a 10 point per game average in 2013-14, as well as junior Tony Ellis, Pygatt and junior A.J. Maun. These six have scored more than 63 percent of the team’s points one game out from the regular season finale.

An incredibly productive freshman class provided the remaining 37 percent of this season’s points. The Raiders made the offseason acquisition of four talented first-year players: Dustin Sleva, Justin McCarthur, Clay Conner and Trent Bauer.

Sleva, a 6 foot, 7 inch forward out of Montour, Pennsylvania, averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds during his high school years, and McCarthur brought a 16-point, five assist, four-rebound average to the table out of Bishop McDevitt. The two would combine for 484 points and total 64 assists a piece in their first season.

Conner and Bauer used their first year to gain valuable experience at guard and center, contributing solid shooting percentages and defense off the bench.

“Our freshman class had a tremendous impact this season,” Fite said. “When we recruited them we presented them with our vision and made it clear the value they could bring. As soon as they set foot on campus they took advantage, and came with the right focus and work ethic. I’m proud of the way they have performed this year.”

For the Raiders, the season culminates this Wednesday night as they hope for the fates to decide in their favor. While Shippensburg takes on last-place Cheyney, sixth-place Mansfield (11-14, 9-12 PSAC East) will battle No. 3 West Chester (15-12, 13-8 PSAC East) in mid-week action that will determine who grabs the final PSAC East playoff spot. If Shippensburg wins and Mansfield loses the two will tie for the sixth spot in the division, but the Raiders would own the tie breaker according to both teams’ regular season records against the top teams in the division.

“This season needed to happen after last season,” Edgar said. “Now guys can start to feel confident that they can really do this, and that the team is good enough to really make some ripples in the PSAC play in the future.”

Share