Jimmies men's hoops working to head back to Kansas City
Nov. 2—JAMESTOWN — After making it to Kansas City for the second consecutive season, the University of Jamestown was picked to finish first in the GPAC and is ranked ninth in the country behind a retooled roster that returns the top four leading scorers from last year.
The team's leading scorer was Mason Walters, who became the first player in program history to be named an NAIA All-American for the second time. He averaged 24.2 points per game, 11.5 rebounds per game and 1.9 assists per game.
Walters said he wants to improve defensively in his senior season and become more of a vocal leader.
The Jimmies also have four transfers who joined the program — Colby Vazquez from Skyline Community College (Calif.), Marcus Sherwood from Umpqua Community College (Ore.), Jimmy Llinas from St.Xavier University (Ill.), and Reid Gasner from the University of Minnesota-Moorhead (Minn.).
During his two years at Skyline, Vazquez averaged 13.1 points per game, 4.4 rebounds per game and 2.9 assists per game. Vazquez said he has worked on adjusting to the higher level that the NAIA presents from the junior college.
Ahead of the season, Jimmies head coach Danny Neville was not looking too far down the road in terms of his expectations.
"But, our expectations right now are just getting better every day," Neville said. "That's our expectation for right now, obviously when we get closer to certain times, if we're on the run for a regular season conference championship, then it'll sway."
The Jimmies' season ended last year in the Sweet 16 with a 67-56 loss to Talladega College (Ala.).
"I think if guys said they weren't thinking about that over the summer, they'd be lying," Walters said. "It's definitely motivated us to get better, we don't want that same feeling at the end of this season. They were a good team but we want to get back there and not have that end again."
One of the early marquee moments for the Jimmies will be when Walters passes Brequan Tucker for the most points in a career in program history. Walters currently sits 18 points behind Tucker's record of 1,776 points.
"It's in the back of my mind but I'm not worried about that. I'm more worried about winning a conference championship," Walters said. "We haven't done that since I've been here."
The Jimmies open the season at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, when they face Dickinson State.
The Jimmies have a tough early season test at the end of this month when they face two teams that received votes in the preseason poll in Concordia University (Neb.) on Nov. 22 and West Virginia Institute of Technology on Nov. 26. The Jimmies also face No. 6-ranked William Jessup on Nov. 27.
"That'll be one of the tougher stretches that we have," Neville said. "It's important but we're not looking ahead, but for us we really respect all of those teams and we know it's going to be a battle and we know we have to play with them well to win. I think we embrace and enjoy the challenge of that road trip and that'll really see what we're made of and how good our team is."
Despite expecting big seasons from multiple players including Marc Kjos, Vazquez and Walters, Neville said he is especially looking for breakout campaigns from Gasner and Cole Woodford. During his two years as a Dragon, Gasner played in 17 games, playing sparingly only averaging 2.3 minutes per game. During his sophomore season for the Jimmies, Woodford played in all 35 of the team's games, averaging 10.6 points per game, 3 rebounds per game and 2.3 assists per game.
The only two seniors on the roster are Walters and Kjos, which gives Neville confidence in their ability to lead.
"Today me and coach (Tyler) Peterson were doing something and we were running a little bit late and I just gave Marc and Mason the practice plan and they were doing the first 20 minutes," Neville said. "So, having those two guys and having some other returners is really really beneficial to experience and knowing if you trust a team to run 30 minutes of practice, I think you're doing things right."
