Cougar Men’s Basketball Aims High for the 2018 Season
The University of Sioux Falls Men’s basketball team tipped off the season with a pair of wins last weekend.
The Cougars had a successful 2017-2018 season in which they won twenty of their thirty season games. However, it ended with a sixty-seven to fifty-six loss to St. Cloud State in the NSIC quarterfinal game at the Sanford Pentagon.
This season, the Cougars look to be even more successful than last year.
According to the NSIC preseason coaches’ poll, USF is estimated to finish third in the NSIC and tie for first in the Southern region.
One reason this may happen is because of Head Coach Chris Johnson.
Senior Cougar Drew Guebert is in his fourth season under coach Johnson. “I’ve had just a ton of respect for Coach Johnson and what he has been able to do here. Every year it seems like we get better and better, and we get guys in here (USF) that really care and buy into the program,” Guebert says.
With last year being great, the big question is how do the cougars improve on this season? Head Coach Chris Johnson says that the defense will be the key to winning games.
“I think we’ll try to be a little more consistent on the defensive end of the floor. Obviously, it’s not a secret we scored well last year and so far this year,” Johnson says. “But what I’m really happy with this year is how we have defended and rebounded.”
With the high expectations of being a top team in the NSIC, the goals and standards for the team changes.
“We want to make the NCAA tournament for sure, that’s our goal. We think that this year we have a chance to win the conference and get a chance to make the NCAA tournament,” Guebert says. “So were just going to do the best we can to get there.”
“We know that there are expectations we had, that we didn’t have, even going into last season. I think we surprised some people last year,” Johnson says. “This year, I don’t think that’s going to happen. We just have standards of what we expect of what we want everyday and I think that’ll lead to some goals being met.”
With a great season to look forward to, Coach Johnson has some advice for Cougar fans.
“Come out and watch this team! This is a fun team to watch! I think we scored eighty-nine and ninety-nine in our first two games,” Johnson says. “They’ll play hard, they really enjoy playing together and I think it’s a team our fans will be proud of.”
The Cougars first game home game is Friday, November 16that 7:00 vs Waldorf College.
