Well Seasoned

CY anxious to see battle-hardened Eagles take the court

Charlton Young can’t wait to get this season started.

“We’re going from being probably the youngest team in the country to one of the older teams in our conference,” said the Eagle men’s basketball head coach.

Among the older players returning this season will be senior Ben Drayton, who Young says has improved tremendously.

Senior Willie Powers will also be returning from an injury sustained last season. Young wants Powers to drop about 15 pounds before the start of the season in order to take some pressure off of his knees and ankles so as to prevent further injuries.

“With those two guys in our backcourt, we have two of the better guards in the conference,” Young said.

There will also be five of last year’s freshman players returning this season, including Marvin Baynham and Jelani Hewitt – two players that Young says could have easily been on the SoCon All- Freshman team.

The 19th-ranked freshman in the country, Eric Ferguson, and teammates Sam Mike and Tré Bussey will complete the list of returning freshman players.

“Those five are coming back and they got cooperative education; they got on-the-job training. I threw them out there even when they didn’t know what in the world was going on,” Young said.

In addition to those players returning from last season, Young has picked up three incoming freshmen. Tyrone Brown, from Millen, Ga., and Cameron Dunigan, from Sumter, S.C., are both 6-foot-9 players that Young says are “high-energy individuals that can run, block shots, and finish around the rim.”

Combo-guard and all-state wide receiver, Jesse Purnell from Augusta, Ga., will be the third incoming freshman to complete the team’s line-up.

Young’s main focus for improvement over last season’s performance lies in the team’s ability to shoot.

“We did not shoot the ball well last season. Some of it was inexperience and the speed of the game. Some of it was losing our point guard, Willie Powers, who kind of set guys up and made the games easier for people,” Young said.

To improve the team’s shooting percentage, Young is making sure that during every individual workout the players are taking over 500 shots and charting each one of them.

Young is leading the men’s basketball team into its third year of a program that he says is growing.

“We took our knocks, but I knew what I was doing. I wanted to build it with freshmen. We wanted to build a program that could sustain itself. We’re in year three and we have a chance to take off and have a really good two- or three-year run with these kids we have in the program,” Young said.

Young has no doubt that the University and the fans will have the patience to wait for him to make the Georgia Southern men’s basketball team a winning program again.

“President Keel, Sam Baker, and our administration have all been fabulous with me and my staff, and with the kids in our program. But, even more impressive than our administration, the student body and the fans have been unbelievable,” Young said.

Young said that at the end of last season he would still see between 1,500 to 2,000 fans at each game to support a team that was struggling.

“The community and the student body believe in what we’re doing,” Young said.