The NCAA men’s basketball season kicked off this Monday and Grambling St season opener is
on Friday. All the work that the coaching staff and players put in this off season its finally time to see some results.
They play there season opener down in Waco. Texas against the explosive 16 ranked Baylor Bears.
Last year the Bears went to the NCAA tournament fell short to Duke in the Elite 8.
That year was the first
year the Baylor Bears recored a NCAA tournament win since they went to the Final 4 in 1950.
Last year the Grambling St. Tigers finished 8th in there division, but they went to there conference
tournament and did the unexpected.
In the SWAC tournament last year the Grambling State Tigers knocked
off the tournament favors Jackson St and only fell short to Texas Southern by a few points.
This Friday the face each other and I sat down and an exclusive interview with the head coach of the
Grambling St Tigers to talk about not only the game against the Bears but about the new the season and
changes from last years team to this years team.
Coach Washington said that they excited about this season and ready to “put everything together.”
Coach Washington love the recruitment that went on this off season.
This years team has 10 new players and
only 4 returning players(Teams leading Scorer Donald Qualls, leading rebounder Lance Feurtado pg,
Rupert Rose and forward/guard Rydell Harris)
With the ten new player we have on interesting player we have is YonDarius Johnson.
YonDarius is played his high school basketball at Plain Dealing High school in Plain, Louisiana.
He was an 2010
McDonalds All American nominee and is an tremendous scorer.
Coach Washington spoke highly
on the young kid “He’s a natural born scorer that why we recruited him thats how he got his name “BUCKETS” he also said “BUCKETS has a lot to learn.”
Even though this a new team according to Coach Washington, it’s not going to take much longer to get
the teams chemistry down packed.Coach Washington broke the season in to five sections. 1.Pre-season
2.Season opener – finals
3.Christmas Break
4. Conference play
5.Post-season.
He said by the 3rd stage the team should be jelled together and have there chemistry down packed.
I fell like this years “New and Improved” Grambling st basketball team could perhaps make a run in the SWAC but Coach Washington said “You gotta crawl before you walk but the best thing is that we have a decent amount of time.”
He said this years is going to be a long excited journey.
Lastly I asked Coach Washington about the first game against the Baylor Bears and how he said even though LanceDarius Dunn isn’t playing and there scoring might be down a little they are still a top 25 team but if
our guys give maximum effort and keep there mental then thy could come out on top.
Could Coach Washington bring excitement back to Grambling basketball like it was in in the late 50s just got to get on
the marathon and find out?