Your future, our focus
Now What?
The harsh reality of having to prepare for next season is slowly creeping up on Northwest College men’s basketball coach Brian Erickson.
After his Trappers fell short in a 94-92 quarterfinal loss to national champion Northwest Florida State College at the NJCAA Division I Men’s National Basketball Championship on Thursday in Kansas, Erickson saw his starting five and two other sophomores play basketball in NWC red and white for the last time.
Chris Boucher, Nicky Desilien, EJ Hubbard, Colin May and Daryle Morgan made up Erickson’s starting lineup for the majority of the season, but will be playing ball somewhere else come November. Tyler Chandler and Eric Robinson will follow suit, leaving Erickson with little more than a shell of a team that won 31 ballgames, a Region IX North title and Region IX Tournament championship while earning NWC’s first national tournament berth since 1967.
“That’s just college basketball,” Erickson said. “Players are going to come and go. And especially at this level, you get guys for two seasons and then you have to rebuild. That’s just the way it is, but good programs learn how to stay competitive.”
Erickson is unsure which of his redshirts and current freshmen will stay in Powell next season, but added he isn’t worried about filling spots. NWC was in a similar situation following the 2013-14 campaign, as Hubbard and May were reserves, and Chandler was the lone returning regular after making the starting lineup for the final 15 games.
Boucher and Desilien eventually came to Northwest as transfers from New Mexico Junior College last summer, and Morgan joined them after spending his freshman year at Central Wyoming.
“We did the exact same thing last year,” Erickson said. “We didn’t have a ton of guys who played for us this year that were studs for us last year. We were lucky those guys developed, and that we got some transfers. And next season, we’re going to need a little bit of the same thing.”
Erickson believes an aggressive recruiting approach mixed in with a new wave of transfers could keep NWC relevant heading into next season. And the key, the third-year coach said, isn’t to replace the guys who helped NWC score almost 100 points a game, but to find the right fits for the program and acclamate them to the NWC culture, which was the case with his first-time Trappers this season.
“You can never replace certain players,” Erickson said. “Each year you’re just saying, ‘How can we get better in a different way?’ and the style that we played this year, the product you saw on the court, we may not be playing the same way next year.”
As Erickson plans to retool his team, several Trappers will have opportunities to play basketball at the next level later this year.
Boucher and Desilien have been hotly recruited by several Division I programs since the start of the season, and Morgan has also drawn interest from DI schools.
Boucher, a native of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, led his team in points, rebounds and blocks this season, and was hounded by DI recruits from the beginning.
But the 6-10 forward- center refused to address the constant phone calls, text messages, emails and letters until the end of the season as a show of respect toward his team. But now the star has a decision to make.
“I’m not in any rush, I have until April to make a decision,” Boucher said. “And no matter how much pressure they put on me, I’m going to take my time. I’m not going to rush anything, because wherever I go, that’s basically my home for two years.
“So I don’t want to choose a school just for the name or because of any promises. I’m going to make sure it’s a good place for me.”
Desilien has drawn interest from some of the same schools as his childhood friend. The two spent several years together in Montreal, playing high school ball together before making the trip to New Mexico and then to Northwest. The list of schools at which the duo could play together is shorter than if they decide to split up, but Desilien believes sticking together would be beneficial.
“Basketball probably isn’t done for me and Chris,” Desilien said. “We have offers and we’re going to take advantage of it.
“We’re great together, but at the end of the day, if the school I choose isn’t the school Chris chooses, I’m still going to support Chris and he’s still going to support me,” he said. “But I think we would rather play together because it really works.”
Hubbard also has potential suitors waiting for him to decide his basketball future. But following Thursday night’s season-ending loss, the Converse, Texas, native was less worried about what’s in front of him, and more concerned with what he’s leaving behind.
“I’m going to miss all of [my teammates],” Hubbard said. “Especially my Canadians, Ty (Chandler), my Wyoming boys ... no matter who it is ... to Ammar, [Morgan], the redshirts ... all of them — even the people back in Powell. I’m going to miss everybody — it was a great experience being here.
“Northwest showed me a lot about being in a small town, and how everybody comes together as a family and really meshes as one.”