With the Spring semester coming to its halfway point the winter sports season has wrapped up at Averett. The season was a busy one for men’s basketball and their head coach David Doino. The team finished with an 8-17 overall record and a 3-13 mark in the ODAC.
Even though they dropped their last game of the season on the road again Guilford, Doino believes the team has a lot of strengths to build on.
“I liked how we fought in our last game, as far as know that there wasn’t anything as far as playoffs to play for, but we played with a lot of pride and a lot of heart. For me, and it was something that we were looking at doing for that last game, making sure that we left everything on the line. So I think there were some positive things for us to build off of with the way we ended, and did some things down the stretch for some young guys. But (we are) not where we want to be as a program. We just have to keep on working in the future to get where we want to be.”
Part of the Averett Athletics mentality has always been about building on what we have already accomplished, and we can do to get better. This mentality lives within the Cougars locker room, and it showed this season with the veteran group that they have built over the past few years, complimented by a combination of newcomers and transfers that have improved the team both on and off the court.
“I think there is some maturity that comes along with anytime freshmen become sophomores,” Doino said. “I think we added some good young pieces, and I think when we were at full strength at the beginning of the season, we saw potential of what we could become. But we had some guys throughout the year have to step into some new roles that maybe they weren’t quite prepared for at the moment, but towards the end of the year, they were prepared for, we saw tremendous growth in guys. We just have to keep making sure from a maturity stand point that our guys keep growing up.”
With any team, comes ups and downs both on and off the floor. Despite missing the conference tournament, there seems to be a surplus of positivity in the program.
As we wind down the spring semester and look forward to the summer, and the future of Averett Athletics, there is plenty of things for fans to be excited about.
