The OUA East hoops-scape has changed quite a bit since Ottawa's Shawn Swords, who was introduced last night as the Laurentian Voyageurs men's basketball coach, was tearing up the court for the Voyageurs in the mid-'90s.
Good friend Trevor Stewart, who covers Laurentian athletics for the local Sudbury Star, is won over: "I asked him what position he played at LU and with the national team and he said in one international tourney he played the five spot and guarded (long-time NBA big) Vlade Divac (about five inches taller), and with some success.
"So he's gutsy, and you have to think that will rub off on his players. The LU ball teams I've seen here just never seemed to put it together under (former coach) Virgil Hill. Swords talked a lot last night about positive attitude, team chemistry, and playing hard. It's always hard to gauge a team's chemistry or mindset when you aren't around them a lot, but maybe that's where the last few LU teams were lacking."
Trevor also points that Swords made his rep as a player, post-Laurentian, on hard work and tenacity, most notably with Jay Triano's overachieving 2000 Canadian Olympic squad, where he worked his way up from end-of-the-bench player into the regular rotation. As a 33-year-old rookie CIS coach, Swords, who played in Italy for part of his decade-long pro career overseas, is going to need a similar kind of brio to restore Laurentian (9-19 last season, including 6-14 in the OUA) to some semblance of its bygone basketball glory.
The northern school used to lap it up in the OUA East, but Carleton and the U of O are now national powers and the three Toronto schools have Canada's deepest basketball talent pool in their backyards. Even Queen's (at long last) is taking men's basketball seriously.
Like Brandon's Barnaby Craddock, Swords seems like an ambitious young coach with experience in Europe (which should come in handy with the switch to the FIBA rules), who's running a team at a smallish university in a close-knit city where university basketball commands a fairly high profile. Like Craddock and Dave Smart in his first seasons at Carleton, it also helps that he's at a school which doesn't have football or hockey, meaning basketball is the marquee game. Presumably, his contacts overseas might be a selling point for players who are interested in playing basketball for a few years beyond university.
Seeing someone of Swords' pedigree as a player get into coaching can only be seen as a positive for the OUA and CIS. He's in a good situation to further demonstrate that Ottawa region basketball know-how, so wish him well.
Related:
Swords to lead LU; Former Voyageurs standout returns 10 years later to coach (Trevor Stewart, Sudbury Star)
Mark Wacyk, of course, led with this at cishoops.ca on Sunday.
U of O recruiting note: The Gee-Gees women's program just announced that Danielle Ranger, a 5-foot-9 combo guard out of St. Mark's in Ottawa, has committed for next season. Over the past two seasons Ranger has been part of a provincial champion club team and helped St. Mark win a provincial AAA bronze medal in '06.
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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