FLIGHT LINE: OKWU Eagles set for Friday launch into basketball wars
Oklahoma Wesleyan University’s men’s basketball team is about the Omega and Alpha heading into Friday’s season opener.
The Omega — a huge veteran presence who are back after ending last season’s 34-3, national Elite-Eight team — and the Alpha — a bunch of hungry freshmen who are in the genesis of what they hope will produce fruitful success in their college hoop careers — will combine their talents, skills, confidence and determination in the Eagles challenging OKWU Classic Friday and Saturday.
OKWU plunges into the season at 8 p.m. Friday against Southwestern Christian, in a game christened “Jesus Night,” by Eagles head coach Donnie Bostwick.
“The theme this year is ‘It’s All About Jesus,’” Bostwick said. “We want to have a big Jesus party and focus on Him. On Friday we’ll have horns to balloons, light-up sticks, throw candy to the kids. We want to have a real family atmosphere.”
Saturday’s contest against the University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma might be OKWU’s first mega-test of the season. Tip-off is set for 8 p.m.
OKWU tenth-year head coach Donnie Bostwick has purposely bumped up the toughness of the non-conference schedule, in order to improve RPI (rating percentage index) points, which are key in rankings and postseason tournament seedings.
“Usually, in the non-conference portion we have three tough ones and three that give our young players a chance to grow,” Bostwick said. “This year we decided to see what our RPI looks like.”
Bostwick boasts a powerful group of Eagle returnees to try to meet the challenge.
His likely starting lineup Friday include four first-stringers from last year — Derrick “D.J.” Talton, Jaden Lietzke, Austin Poling and Brandon Bird.
The other prospective starter is Kaleb Stokes, who a starter the previous two seasons who played through injuries last year off the bench.
The next three Eagles in the rotation are also each varsity veterans — Taylen Miller, Dylan Phillip and Aaron Paulukatis.
Lietzke led the team last year in scoring (12.6) and rebounding.(6.1) among the starters. He hit an incredible 70 percent of his field goals. He also blocked 1.4 shots per game.
Bird added 11.7 ppg followed by Stokes at 9.4 ppg, including 1.1 three-pointers per game.
Phillip downed a team-best 1.5 three-pointers per game.
Talton proved to be the offensive catalyst at point guard, pumping in 7.9 ppg while giving out 3.6 assists per game, making 2.0 steals per game.
Stokes proved to be gritty contributor. Battling through ankle and wrist injuries — the latter of which he played with a broken bone — he scored nearly 10 points per game, pulled down 4.1 rebounds per game, spooned out 1.6 assists per game and provided a charismatic presence.
By themselves each of these Eagle players are distinct talents — when playing as a true unit, OKWU provided to be nearly invincible last season.
Bostwick is waiting to see how freshmen fit in — something that can be assessed only within the cauldron of boiling competition.
That will be a tougher task than usual this season — the NAIA cut two weeks off practice time, making it tougher to prepare for the season.
Couple that with Bostwick’s decision to beef up the schedule and OKWU eyes an interesting dilemma.
“If we have a few losses because a tougher schedule it will because we’re getting these guys ready to peak in March,” he explained.
OKWU’s non-conference slate includes Southwestern Christian, Science & Arts, MidAmerica Nazarene, Central Methodist (Mo.), Evangel (Mo.) and Concordia (Neb.).
Three of the six (Science & Arts, Central Methodist and Concordia) were ranked at some point last season in the NAIA Top 25 weekly polls.
Along with quarterfinalist OKWU, members of these six teams that played in last year’s NAIA national tourney included Evangel, Concordia, Science & Arts, Central Methodist,
Not that the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference games will be walk-in-the-park easy for OKWU.
Eagle conference rivals Bethel (Kan.), and Kansas Wesleyan joined OKWU in the Top 25 last season and four KCAC teams qualified for the NAIA nationals — no other conference had more.
As the freshmen benefit from a crash course in the seasoning process of high-level NAIA competition, the Eagles’ upside could be rise to a sun-blinding level.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Oklahoma Wesleyan men's basketball set to start Friday
