It goes without saying that 2020 hasn't been easy for anyone, including the Wayland Baptist Pioneer basketball team. However, head coach
Ty Harrelson believes that better – if not necessarily easier – days are ahead for his program, hopefully beginning Friday afternoon when the Pioneers open their season.
The Pioneers put another solid season in the books in 2019-20, finishing with a 20-11 mark including 12-8 in the highly-competitive Sooner Athletic Conference for fifth place. The Pioneers were ranked the equivalent of 30
th in the NAIA – one of five SAC teams ranked or receiving Top 25 votes – and received a bid to the NAIA National Championships in Kansas City, Mo., right before the season was shut down by COVID-19.
"We had another great season. We won 20 games and qualified for the national tournament for the sixth time in the last seven years," Harrelson said of his fifth season at the helm of his alma mater where he was an NAIA All-American in the early 2000s. "I thought we played our best basketball at the end of last year. I wish for our seniors they would have had an opportunity to play (at nationals)."
The difficult COVID-19 circumstances then made recruiting a different animal this past off-season for the Pioneers.
"We had no spring practices and recruiting became very difficult," said Harrelson, explaining that coaches weren't allowed to travel to visit recruits and recruits, for a time, weren't allowed on-campus visits. But Harrelson said his coaches persisted and he's happy with how things look going into the 2020-21 season.
"Our coaching staff did a good job finding the players that fit for this year's team," said Harrelson. "We're excited to have
Jack Nobles (who played the past two seasons at Wayland) as a graduate assistant. Jack is somebody who knows our program and was very successful in it."
Besides Nobles, an All-SAC Third-Team selection last season, three others graduated out of Pioneer uniforms in
Matthew Mulloy, C.J. Obinwa and
J.J. Culver, the two-time NAIA All-American who was SAC Player of the Year as a junior. Culver led the Pioneers in almost every major statistical category last season, including points (23.1), rebounds (6.4), assists (3.2) and steals (2.7), so he'll certainly be missed.
Seven players return off last season's roster, including five seniors. Leading those veterans is
Tre Fillmore, a 6-foot-2 guard from Amarillo Palo Duro who was Wayland's third-leading scorer a year ago at 9.6 ppg to go with 2.0 rebounds.
"Tre has been in the program for four years. He looks great right now," Harrelson said. "He's always had the ability to stretch the floor with his 3-point shooting ability."
Of Wayland's top six scorers in 2019-20, Fillmore is the lone returner, so the other veterans and a host of newcomers will be counted on to take up the scoring slack. Among the most promising prospects is
Jibrael Washington, a 6-foot-8 senior center from Waco by way of Temple College. Washington is a premier shot blocker, ranking eighth in the entire NAIA last season in that category with 1.8 swats a game. He also averaged 2.3 point and almost four rebounds a contest.
Other veterans back are
Jordan Brannon and
Deng Bol Yol. Brannon is a 6-foot-3 sophomore guard from Lubbock Trinity Christian who averaged 3.3 points as a freshman. "Jordan started some games last year," Harrelson said. "Like Tre, he can also stretch the floor with his shooting ability." At 6-foot-11, Bol Yol gives the Pioneers an imposing presence in the middle. The native of Uganda averaged 2.1 points and 3.2 boards in his first season at Wayland.
Rounding out the veterans are senior
Mattia Cafisi, a senior point-guard from Switzerland who played previously at Frank Phillips College, 6-foot-7 senior
Hunter Henderson of Kellyville, Okla., and sophomore guard
Gage Hulse of Huffman.
Among the team's newcomers are two players with ties to former Pioneers.
Thaddeus Udoh, a 6-foot-5 guard/forward and a graduate of Amarillo Palo Duro, is younger brother to
Bonny Udoh, who played last season.
Javorian Miller is a 6-foot-2 guard who transferred from Abilene Christian where he played football for a couple of years. Miller played previously for former Pioneer Tim Thomas at Odessa Permian High School.
Another promising newcomer is
Chinedu Okonkwo, a 6-foot-7 power forward from Nigeria who transferred from the University of West Florida. "He plays hard and is very physical," Harrelson said.
The Pioneers open their season by hosting Arlington Baptist at 2 p.m. Friday in Hutcherson Center. It's the first of 11 scheduled games this fall, through Nov. 24. The schedule resumes Jan. 2 for the spring semester when Wayland is slated to play 15 more regular-season games, 14 of which are against Sooner Athletic Conference teams with results determining seeds for the SAC Tournament beginning Feb. 25.
