Colonels basketball programs want to turn momentum into wins

The Nicholls State University basketball programs head into the 2018-19 season with momentum.

The men won 20 games last season, while the women won the conference and made it to the NCAA Tournament.

But with a new season comes a new beginning and both the Colonels men and women have high hopes of repeating their successes of the past.

The teams took part in Southland Conference Media Day last week at the Toyota Center in Houston — a chance for conference coaches to give their thoughts on the 2018-19 seasons.

Both women’s coach DoBee Plaisance and men’s coach Austin Claunch expressed excitement in their teams’ offseasons, adding that it’s time to lace ‘em up and play some ball.

WOMEN WANT TO BUILD ON LAST YEAR’S SUCCESSES

Plaisance is an optimist. That’s just part of her DNA.

But this year, she has plenty reason to see the glass half full.

The Colonels won 19 games last year and got hot at the right time, finishing the regular season strong, then winning their first-ever Southland Conference crown.

At Media Day, Plaisance relived that championship run, saying that Nicholls played its best basketball in the highest-leverage situations.

“It’s always about fighting the good fight,” Plaisance said. “Always, in the game of basketball, when there’s time on the clock, you believe and you want to work hard and something can happen. We’ve done that really all season. We were prepared for that moment.”

But what’s even better than the preparation are the pieces that Nicholls has back. Most championship teams lose their core, but Nicholls returns a slew of high-end players, including last year’s Southland Conference Player of the Year Cassidy Barrios. Also back is guard Tykeria Williams and several of the team’s other leading scorers from one year ago.

Plaisance said Barrios’ return is huge for Nicholls. Barrios is a threat on any given game to lead the Colonels in points, rebounds, assists, steals and minutes.

Off the court, the Vandebilt Catholic graduate is an emotional leader — the person teammates look to when things go south in the heat of battle.

“It’s really about the person,” Plaisance said of the senior. “She is beyond amazing. And you would think, ‘What else could Cassidy Barrios do for this basketball institution and for this community and for this conference?’ But I guarantee you that she’s going to figure it out and she’s going to take it to another level. When we were leaving Starkville (after the NCAA Tournament), I challenged my entire team. I said, ‘Do you see what we did this year? That’s not enough. We have to take it to the next level.’ And Cassidy owned that. And one way or another, she’s going to figure out how to not only carry this team more than she ever has in the past, but she’s going to lead and she’s already demonstrating that at practice.”

The Colonels have a tough non-conference slate leading up to the biggest games of the season. The team will take on Baylor, Auburn, Tulane and LSU before opening the Southland slate against Northwestern State.

Plaisance said the early schedule is designed to get the team ready for conference — much like it did last year.

She said this year’s team is young, but hungry. She believes once they gel, they can be as good as last season — if not better.

“I tell my team all of the time — there’s wins and there’s lessons,” Plaisance said. “Regardless of what happens, we’re either going to win it or there’s going to be a lot of lessons. Or we can sometimes win it with lessons. That’s all in preparation for the Southland Conference.

MEN HAVE HOLES TO FILL

The Colonels men, like the ladies, have momentum coming into the season.

But goodness, do they ever have holes to fill.

Nicholls returns just two significant contributors off last year’s 20-win team, which was raided by graduation.

The Colonels also will have a new coach in 2018-19, as former coach Richie Riley left Thibodaux to take over at South Alabama.

His former assistant, Claunch, now is in charge of the program. He is the youngest head coach in the NCAA D1 at 28-years-old, but said he’s ready to learn on the job and embrace the challenges ahead.

“It’s definitely an exciting time to be at Nicholls State,” Claunch said. “We talk about it all of the time — not just with the basketball teams. But it’s also softball, football. There’s a lot of programs that are on the rise in Thibodaux. So for me to get this opportunity to take over a program and hopefully continue to build on what we’ve done, certainly, it’s exciting.”

There is a lot of unknown surrounding the Colonels.

Nicholls lost more than 80 percent of its scoring off last year’s team and the Colonels have just two players — Kevin Johnson and Ryghe Lyons — who played significant minutes last season.

Claunch said the transition from Riley will be a challenge — especially given the turnover in personnel. But he said all of the program’s fundamental principles are still going to be in place.

“The work ethic that Richie instilled in all of his assistants will be there,” Claunch said. “From a philosophical standpoint, defensively, I think you will see a lot of the same things. Offensively, I will put my own touch on things for this program. More importantly for this program, I think you’ll see a similar style of toughness, discipline and just an enthusiasm for Nicholls State.”

Claunch didn’t go into great detail about his new roster, but added that the new players will endear themselves to the fans early in the season.

“We have a lot of coachable guys,” Claunch said. “That makes it easy for a first-year head coach. Now, they’ve only been together for less than two months, so we’ve got a lot of work to do. I tell our guys all of the time that we’re very unproven. We’ve an unproven team. But I’m excited about where we’re headed, but we can’t take anything for granted.”

Nicholls basketball

Follow Casey on Twitter for more. 

https://twitter.com/casey_gisclair