New attitude for UI men’s basketball

MOSCOW, Idaho – Things are going to be different for the Idaho basketball team this season.

From the outside looking in it’s obvious. There are eight new players to go with six holdovers from George Pfeifer’s first team that was a dismal 4-27 overall, 1-15 in the Western Athletic Conference.

But the biggest difference, at least to those on the inside, isn’t the roster makeover, it’s an attitude adjustment.

“This team is a lot different, everybody wants to be together and wants to learn,” senior Darin Nagle said Saturday morning, moments before the first practice in Memorial Gym. “It seems this group is so close. When we go do something we don’t leave one person out.”

The Vandals got a jump on practice by playing three games in Canada over Labor Day weekend, which was preceded by two weeks of practice.

“This team has a new mindset, a lot more confidence,” junior forward Mike Kale said. “For example, on our Canadian trip, one game we were down 17 at halftime. In the locker room, the team in the past would have been crazy, but this team was calm and collected and we ended up winning by three points. We believe in ourselves more than in the past.”

Nagle, a 6-foot-10 forward, is the only returning player to start every game he played last year, and Kale, a 6-8 junior who redshirted with a knee injury, are confident all their new teammates will contribute.

“It’s hard but the guys we brought in are picking up the system,” Kale said. “The Canadian trip put us ahead. The new guys, it feels like they’ve been here. We’re meshing a lot better than you would think with eight newcomers.”

Nagle, who blocked 42 shots in just 22 games, said, “Talent-wise we have so much more, so many people who can play. People on the bench can come in and play, it’s not one or two people who have to play 35 minutes a game to get a win. In Canada everybody scored, that’s a big thing when everybody can score.”

The Vandals only averaged 61.5 points a game last year and lost the 18.1 points per game from senior Keoni Watson. Nagle is the top returner at 9.3 Trevor Morris, a 6-4 junior guard, averaged 6.5 in 31 games with three starts; Clyde Johnson, a 6-7 senior forward, averaged 4.8 with 20 starts in 31 games; Michael Crowell, a 6-7 senior forward, had 19 starts and averaged 3.9 points in 29 games. Kale averaged 6 points as a sophomore. Pfeifer also considers 6-10 junior Sebastien Taulbee, who redshirted last year, a returning player.

“You have to crawl before you walk,” guard Terrence Simmons, a junior college transfer out of Mississippi, said. “Step by step we’re going to get better. It’s hard to predict, the WAC is good competition. I don’t think there is a lot of pressure on us, we’re underdogs. We have a lot to prove. It’s on us.

“It’s about how bad the players want it. If we want it bad enough it’s going to come together. Everybody stayed during the summer, that helped.”

Simmons was part of a recruiting class that includes 6-3 guard Jordan Brooks, who played for the last two junior college champions and Mike Hall, a 6-foot guard, who joined Brooks on the NCDAA All-Tournament team.

“I think we have high expectations,” Nagle said. “We think we can be pretty good. … We were talking about it a while ago, how we feel so much different coming in this year. It seems like everyone is here to stay, they want to get the job done.”