Sonoma State Seawolves young but good

Excitement, expectations, patience.
Those messages became clear to me from the get go last Thursday when I interviewed Sonoma State men’s head basketball coach Pat Fuscaldo about his team’s upcoming 2009-2010 campaign.
Excitement, expectations, patience.
Excitement for the Seawolves’ 11 underclassmen that are already talented and yet can only get better in the years to come, the expectation of the team being able to vie for a spot in the CCAA Tournament after finishing in the top-half of the conference, and patience when it comes to letting them learn how to play together and shake off their rust.
“We have five guys that are 18, and two guys that are 19,” said Fuscaldo. “It’s goanna take us a while (a year or more) to become a great team, and it may never happen, you never know with injuries and things like that, but if we do it’ll be exciting.”
Many fans may be anything but excited this Friday when they arrive at Seawolf Gym for the Ron Lodgsdon Basketball Classic only to see last year’s leading scorer dressed in street clothes.
Guard Ben Washington is out for the season with a severe quadricep injury, and he will be sorely missed, as he averaged 10.1 points per game for SSU last year and at times reminded me a lot of the Pacers’ T.J. Ford with his quickness, floor vision and pull- up jumper.
But it shouldn’t take long for those fans to see how athletic this Seawolves team is in comparison to past Seawolf teams of the recent future and that it could easily build off of its 12-16 record and CCAA Tournament berth that it earned last March.
Fuscaldo was quick to cite how deep SSU is and how strong its shooting will be, both of which will most likely be on display against Hawaii-Pacific and Concordia on Friday and Saturday respectively.
The star of this year’s team could very well be a true freshman in Sterling Arterberry, whose athleticism and skill set could make him an All-American two or three years down the road.
“He’s an extremely athletic player,” Fuscaldo said of the point guard from Sacramento.
“He does a lot of things well and can dunk. He’s going to do some really exciting things this year, and once people hear what he can do they’re goanna want to see him play.”
And there is also sophomore guard Steven Pratt, who caught the eye of Stanford coaches last Friday after scoring thirteen points in 28 minutes against the Cardinal.
“After the game the (Stanford) coaches were asking me, ‘where did you get this guy?’” said Fuscaldo. “I’m friends with one of the assistant coaches for Stanford, and they were watching the game on film afterwards and were really impressed.
“They were bumping him one way and he was going the other way, and he was hitting shots off of screens.”
And the team also features the proven junior forward Mike Nelson, two promising big men in seniors Chad Chambers and Kyle Shandera, and two other talented players in sophomore point guard Ashley Arnott and freshman big man Dominic Powell who haven’t played a meaningful basketball game for a long time (Arnett was slated to be last year’s starting point guard but suffered a back injury that forced him to miss the entire regular season, and Powell ran track for Cal last year but wasn’t a member of the Bears hoops team).
No one in Rohnert Park should sleep on Arizona State transfer Brenton Thomas either, a swingman who is also just a freshman.
The young Seawolves (who were picked to finish seventh in the CCAA coaches preseason poll) may not be able to outclass the veteran squads of Cal Poly Pomona, Humboldt State and CSU San Bernardino for the top-three spots in the CCAA this year, but should have a solid shot at making the eight-team CCAA Tournament yet again.
But combine the experience that this year’s team (which will remain primarily intact next fall) will gain with a healthy Washington (who will be a redshirt senior next year) and SSU could have a legitimate shot at a CCAA Championship in 2011.
“We have the pieces to win, but the players have to get to know each other on the court, and that can only come with lots of practice and lots of game experience,” said Fuscaldo.
“You can’t rush chemistry or cohesion. It’s a process that takes time.”
That process should be fun to watch this year.