Shawn Siegel (CHN): How does this year's schedule stack up
to recent years?
Mike
Sutton (MS): Last years' schedule was one of the
toughest in school history, with wins over Milwaukee-Wisconsin
and Oregon St. with road games against Michigan St., Cincinnati,
and Dayton to go with an ever improving OVC schedule.
Tennessee, Bradley, UMW, Kansas State, Ole Miss and the San Juan
Shootout could prove to be more formidable this season.
CHN: What
will the strengths and weaknesses of
this year’s team to be?
MS: Hopefully our strenghts will be better interior
play with the return of Jon Jones, Amadi McKenzie, Francis
Kabore, Ra'shun Bryant, and newcomer Daniel Northern. With
experience and adding Northern to the mix (eligilbe at semester
as he is a transfer from South Alabama) on the front line, we
anticipate more effective inside play. We will have to replace
three starters on the perimeter so we will need to get
contributions from new players to give us the depth we want on
the perimeter. Anthony Fisher and Belton Rivers should shoulder
the load at the guard spots and one of the keys will be to find
another perimeter player that can be counted on.
CHN: How hard will it be to deal with the losses of last
year's seniors?
MS: Keyon Boyd, Milone Clark, and Derek Stribling
were all major contributors during their career. Replacing
their versatility and experience will be one of the keys in
improving on last years 19 win season.
Fisher, Rivers, and McKenzie will all have to step up their
games to help replace the loss of the seniors.
CHN: Are you pretty well settled with your
starting lineup? If not, what should we expect to be the biggest
battles for a starting position?
