Hoops coaching shakeup could hinder Gryphons rebuilding process

I’ll admit it. When news broke on Friday that long-time Gryphon women’s basketball head coach Angela Orton was stepping down, the announcement took me by surprise.

Sure, the young Gryphons were coming off of a season that saw them finish in the OUA West basement, with a record of 2-20.

Sure, Orton’s players frequently looked discouraged, disinterested and unprepared for the rigours of OUA competition.

Sure, there were countless rumours suggesting an internal rift between the head coach and her team that compounded the issues faced by a team lacking experience and veteran on-court leadership.

But for a head coach with 22 years of experience and an impressive resume to just take a 12-month leave of absence from coaching, Orton’s timing is somewhat peculiar.

NEW HEAD COACH, TOM O'BRIEN

PHOTO CREDIT: gryphons.ca

Bringing in the bigs

The Gryphons men's basketball team has landed a couple of top recruits to try and bolster their frontcourt depth.

6'8" forward John Brutto was the third ranked high school centre in all of Canada, averaging a filthy 22 points, 18 rebounds and 4 blocks per game.

Dan Latka is a 6'11" centre who will be expected to play bigtime interior defence with Duncan Milne having graduated. He was his high school's MVP for the last two seasons in Parry Sound and will likely compete with Duncan Reid and Adam Bering for minutes at the 5 position this year.

I'm really excited to see what these two players bring the floor. We've commented at length about the Gryphons lack of frontcourt size, especially given the loss of Milne, who anchored the position for the better part of 5 years.

Guelph has also recruited Adrian Achonwa, a 6'3" guard to join the team next year. Achonwa played high school ball just down the road at Centennial CVI in Guelph, the same school that produced Dan McCarthy just a year ago. It'll be interesting to hear what Dan has to say about Adrian and we'll try to get on that soon.

The recruitments of Brutto, Latka and Achonwa brings the number of men's hoops newbies to 5 as they will join Matt Howlett and Brady Heslip who were added earlier.

Still waiting on news about new recruits for the women's team but with Kris Yallin being the only graduating member, I don't expect to see many new faces there this year.

MT

Yallin's last stand

Kris Yallin, Guelph's outgoing captain on the women's basketball team, and star fourth year guard will play in her final university game next Saturday on May 9 taking part in the Inaugural OUA All-Star Game at RIM Park in Waterloo.

Yallin, the team's leading scorer, rebounder and three-point shooter was an OUA West Second Team All-Star this year and will be moving on to pursue an MBA at Wilfrid Laurier University in the fall. As a team co-captain this year with Morgan Jean and Rachel Hancock, Yallin was instrumental in helping to bring along what was a VERY young team, but one that also achieved much more than what was expected of them, earning a playoff berth before falling to McMaster.

I got the chance to interview Kris earlier this year for a piece we did for The Ontarion and she was probably the most personable athlete I met over the past year working for the paper. Having been a part of the broadcasting team that covered Gryphons basketball this year, I got a chance to see many of the top OUA 'ballers and I can safely say that Yallin will not be out of place in this team.

Some of her teammates in the upcoming All-Star game will include OUA West stars Dranadia Roc, Taylor Smith, Alyssa Wulff and Gryphon killer Amanda Anderson, who lit up the Gryphs on multiple occasions with her three-point shooting this year for the Western Mustangs.

If you're a fan of OUA basketball, this game is a can't miss as it's a chance to see some of the greatest female players in the province.

Come one, come all

Had a meeting with Barry Rooke and Aaron Levy (aka Ken Cheesy) yesterday about the future of Guelph Gryphons sports action on the radio for next year. Barry, as interim station manager at 93.3FM CFRU, the campus radio station, was the brains behind this year's sports broadcasting project that Aaron and I did play-by-play and colour commentary for, along with a host of fantastic guests. Aaron, who also hosts a weekly radio show from 1-3pm on Mondays (Anarcha-Feminist Kool Aid Acid Test), did some work as a football broadcaster in the fall and I came alongside to do basketball and the women's hockey playoffs shortly after.

Both Barry and Aaron are great guys and have been, along with myself, tirelessly committed to trying to bring listeners some Gryphons sports coverage on the radio.

The success of this year's sports radio broadcasting has gotten some people talking about ways to take it further and our meeting yesterday discussed ideas about how we can take sports broadcasting to the next level. We've built partnerships with Gryphons athletics and several varsity staffs and are now looking to move into the business aspects of production to further develop the project.

Without getting into a lot of specific details, I want to start with the main thing we determined: THE NEED FOR MORE VOLUNTEER HELP!!!!

The sports broadcasting is a project put on by volunteers working in conjunction with CFRU's staff and has the potential to not only create great programming but also serve as a great educational opportunity for anyone looking to get involved in any aspect of broadcast journalism.

For the fall, we're looking to exclusively cover Gryphons football, followed by men's and women's basketball and some hockey in the spring. If you're at all interested in participating in this project, as a commentator, producer, interviewer, tech support or anything related to radio production of athletics events, take the time to become a CFRU volunteer and we'll get you hooked up! The success of the project explicitly depends on our ability to attract volunteers.

Give it a shot, you might end up like me and find it to be something worth pursuing!

MT

Gryphons bolster backcourt

The Gryphons men's basketball team has received notification of commitment from Burlington native, Brady Heslip, a 6-foot-2, 180lb guard, one of the top outside shooting recruits in the province.

With Nick Pankerichan graduating, the Gryphons were in need of some backcourt help and it will be interesting to see what kind of role Heslip takes on in his first year. I watched a couple of highlight videos on him (Youtube is always clutch!) and this kid looks like a very solid outside shooter. He's got a quick release and seems to have good court sense too. While most of his highlights showed Heslip spotting up from 3-point land, it also looks like he can distribute the basketball and drive to the net. Being a little on the small side, I think Heslip translates well into a good combo-guard, a la Dan McCarthy.

Rookie guards seem to step in and contribute faster than big men in the OUA, as indicated by last year's OUA All-Rookie team (of the 6 players on the team, 4 were guards and that didn't include McCarthy who was also very solid and just missed the nomination). Heslip could come in and provide some instant offence for the Gryphons off the bench.

With McCarthy, Mike Petrella, Jon Moscatelli and potentially Charles Agyemang returning next year, I don't see Heslip cracking the starting lineup in his inaugural year. Petrella showed some great signs late in the year and McCarthy has a ton of upside that should translate into results in his second year. Moscatelli will likely be counted on to be the main scoring option for the Gryphons, but needs to improve his defence.

Stay tuned for more Gryphons updates - I still think they need to address the frontcourt with Duncan Milne graduating and Adam Bering and Duncan Reid yet to show that they replace Milne's 30 minutes a game. Bering's 2008-09 season was inconsistent and derailed by a concussion and Reid played limited minutes and looked raw when he did play. Both guys have potential to contribute and their summer workouts will be critical.

MT