By Duane Cochran
FAIRMONT — Replacing a second-team All-America selection and the nation’s second-leading scorer will certainly be a tall order this winter for Fairmont State’s men’s basketball team.
However, the loss of Thad McFadden, who led FSU in scoring (25.4), 3-point field goals (106), assists (3.9) and steals (2.0) and was second on the team in rebounding (5.4) last season, will be lessened some by the fact that the Falcons return eight players, many of whom got a wealth of quality minutes last year on the floor as the Falcons finished 20-9 overall and 12-8 in the West Virginia Conference.
On Tuesday the WVC released its annual preseason coaches’ poll and FSU was tabbed to finish sixth in the 16-team league. That’s exactly the same spot Fairmont finished in during the 2008-09 campaign.
“Any coach will tell you preseason polls don’t mean a heck of a lot so it is what it is,” said sixth-year FSU head coach Tim Murphy. “After looking at the poll that’s about where I thought they’d put us and that’s about the way I figured the entire poll would turn out.
“All of the first-team all-conference selections from last year are gone this season, but everyone knows who everyone else had recruited and who they have coming in so I’d say it’s a pretty realistic poll.”
Defending regular-season champion West Virginia State (24-6, 19-1), despite losing four starters, was picked to repeat as the title holder again this year. The Yellow Jackets return senior guard Darren Jones, but have added three Division I transfers and a pair of junior college transfers.
West Liberty University (23-7, 16-4) was picked second in the poll and was followed by Alderson-Broaddus (27-6, 17-3), Pitt-Johnstown (24-8, 15-5) and the University of Charleston (13-15, 8-12).
FSU leads the second five and is followed by Wheeling Jesuit (14-16, 10-10), West Virginia Wesleyan (10-18, 10-10), Concord (10-18, 8-12) and Seton Hill (10-18, 7-13).
Rounding out the poll in the 11-to-15 spots are Shepherd (13-16, 11-9), Davis & Elkins (7-21, 5-15), Glenville State (20-9, 13-7), Bluefield State (3-25, 3-17) and Ohio Valley (5-23, 3-17).
Salem International is not eligible for the 2009-10 men’s basketball championship due to NCAA sanctions.
The Falcons, who open the season Nov. 15-16 in their own annual Tip-Off Classic at the Joe Retton Arena with Maryland Bible, Urbana and Glenville State, have practiced 16 times thus far and have held one scrimmage.
“To be honest I’ve been particularly pleased with our effort and the fact that our guys have been practicing hard,” said Murphy. “We’re still kind of feeling our way through it, though. We have guys competing and challenging one another for starting jobs and in my opinion that’s a good situation for us.
“We’ve really tried to put an emphasis on playing better defense this season and we want to become a better rebounding team. We’ll find ways to score points. We always have. We knew, though, that we had to get better defensively to win and we’ve put a big emphasis on that during the preseason.”
FSU welcomes back senior forwards Dan Bruner (11.4 ppg) and Pete O’Connor (2.6) as well as junior guards Michael Lopez (9.0) and Ryland Newman (2.9). The Falcons also have a bevy of talented sophomores returning in Steve Custis (10.3), Chris Thompson (5.8), Will Richardson (4.8) and Andrew Gunnoe (2.1).
Besides those eight, FSU also returns redshirt freshman guard Ben Wise. Newcomers on the team include junior college transfers Erving McFadden, a 5-9, 160-pound junior guard who is the younger brother of Thad McFadden, Terrence Green, a 6-3, 180-pound junior guard/forward, Michael Henderson, a 6-6, 195-pound junior forward and Chris Talley, a 6-1, 195-pound junior guard.
The Falcons also have talented true freshman guard Isaac Thornton, a 6-3, 185-pounder from Martinsburg High School who is expected to play early and often.
“We feel like we’re going to be quicker and more athletic than we’ve been in the past,” said Murphy. “We’re not real big, but all of the kids we brought in are more athletic than guys we’ve had here in the past.”
