The Bucks men’s basketball team is struggling to meet expectations with few returning players and facing combative components after winning the ESAC district championship and their impressive record last season.
Coach Farrad McLaughlin returned along with five players from last season’s team and remains confident in his approach. “We’ve kind of got a target on our backs as returning champions. This year we want to make the national tournament,” said McLaughlin, referring to last season, when the team was “considered for the National USCAA Tournament,” according to the Bucks website.
Notable returning players include Jaquis Heath, a sophomore who this season has averaged 12.6-points per game; Brendan O’Reilly, the team’s captain who this season became a starter; and Jaden Fogg, who has performed much better this season, having averaged 8.5-points per game last season, and now averages 17-points per game.
Bucks, as a two-year college, often faces teams from four-year universities, who sometimes have more experienced players. McLaughlin sees this as beneficial to his players, giving them a chance to compete against stiffer competition and engage in what he calls “a kind of built-in transfer portal.”
“The coaches from the other teams see our players, and I’ve had several coaches come up to me asking about them and their plans—whether they might come and play for them after Bucks,” McLaughlin said.
He attributes this season’s losses to having “faced a lot of hostile environments on the road.” This season, the men’s team has played only one home game, their first win of the season, against Monroe College’s junior varsity team, with a final score of 79-65. In their most recent game, however, they finally won an away game, against Christendom, with a final score of 81-75.
James Parks, an Air Force veteran and assistant director for Nike Basketball was added this season as an assistant coach.
The team also added its tallest player this season, Matt Jarek, a 6 foot 7-inch Bucks County native, though he has only played thirteen minutes this season.
McLaughlin notes that new players are often surprised by the difficulty of their competition, saying, “You might think, you know, it’s not D1, D2, but it’s still really hard. Our players come in, and they’re used to being the best at their high school level. And here they’re facing guys who are sometimes 25 years old with kids, who maybe lost a scholarship and are trying to get back,” he said.
But McLaughlin again sees this as an opportunity, part of his philosophy he describes with an acronym, NOW—No Opportunities Wasted. “Every practice, every film session, every play is an opportunity for the future. It can be the difference between winning a game and losing a game, getting a scholarship or not getting one,” he said.