As the Goshen College men’s basketball team prepares for the upcoming season, Dwight Gingerich, the head coach and athletic director, is focused on improvement, team chemistry and building on the experience gained last year. Finishing 9-19 overall last year and 2-16 in the conference, they are looking for improvement in both areas.

Gingerich said one of the team’s biggest goals is to improve every day at practice while continuing the progress the team made last season. They have several returning players, so he believes that the team is in a better position at the beginning of this season than last season. 

Gingerich said, “I’d like to think that we could pick it up where we left off … We lost some major contributors so you know hopefully some of our new guys will pick up the slack in that area.”

Although the team lost leaders, Gingerich emphasized the importance of building and creating a positive culture this season. He said the team wants to hold each other accountable while continuing to stay positive during the difficult moments in practices and games, and that it will build a competitive and resilient group of players. “We want to be highly competitive. We want to be resilient. We want to be compassionate for each other,” Gingerich said.

The team has been preparing in the offseason with some conditioning. It has helped players get ready and in shape for the season. Because many of their players are international students, they weren’t able to spend time all together during the summer. Therefore, they had to do their own workouts at home. However, some local players were able to make it to workouts in the summer. Once school started and the whole team was here, Gingerich said they showed strong effort and made lots of progress during their pre-season workouts and conditioning.

Gingerich described this year’s team in these three words: smart, hard-working and caring. He believes that those qualities will be very important to how this team meshes together while blending their returning players with their five new additions. These new additions are Goshen High School graduate Levi Sawatzky, Ali Gningue from Harry S. Truman College in Chicago, Seydi Thiombane from Los Angeles, Langa Ntiwane from South Africa, and Dom Bonner, a transfer from Marian University who will have to red shirt this season because of interconference transfer rules.

With nine returning players, Gingerich believes that this new team has plenty of players capable of contributing. “We’re gonna need to rely on that core early, then try to bring the other guys along,” he said.

Another important part of the team is their coaching staff. Gingerich praised his assistant coach, Erik Bowen, for his passion and intensity during practice and games. He also praised Bowen for his knowledge of the game. Bowen played previously at GC’s conference opponent Grace College. Gingerich spoke on the experiene he brings from playing in the Crossroads League conference and how that has been a big contribution to the team. “He knows the conference well,” Gingerich said, “He’s highly competitive and brings that.” 

On Oct. 24, the men’s basketball team took on Warner University from Florida, losing a thriller 78-81. Kevin Cota tied his career high points scoring 20 in their home opener. Senior Marcus Northern was recognized for reaching 1,000 career points the previous year and he now sits at 1,033 points in his career.

On Wednesday, the Maple Leafs defeated the Judson University Eagles on a score of 94-70. Northern scored 22 points, Cota and Braden Allen both scored 15, with Sawatzky scoring 13.