After going winless in their 2023–24 campaign, the Goshen College men’s basketball team is looking for better results with a revamped roster. With 10 transfers, one freshman and seven returners, the team is older and looking to take advantage of that this year. 

When asked about the roster reset, Judah Simfukwe, a junior player returning for his third season, said, “It’s a great opportunity. I know last year we were super young, so we have [10] transfers or so that are juniors and seniors. So they bring a lot of basketball, a lot of playing time to our team, which I think is gonna be helpful.”

Preparations have not been without their struggles however, with over 50% of the roster being new, the chemistry has not been perfect. Talking about the team’s mindset, Simfukwe said, “Everybody’s trying to learn, everybody’s doing the best they can. Again, it’s not going to be perfect. So we need to understand it’s not going to be perfect, and try to build around that.”  

To help with the struggles of 11 new players, one of those transfers, Andre Bradford, a fifth-year, said the team picked the word “unity” as the team motto for this season: “We can only move as far as the next part. The person next to us as well, so like no man left behind. We all have to move in unison.” 

This “unity” is only the start of the puzzle when trying to piece together wins for this season. Bradford highlighted the team’s size disadvantage, saying, “We want to be a lot more physical. We are very undersized, so we have to crash and be more physical than the next team, just so that we can hide our weakness of being undersized.” 

Simfukwe believes that they have the team to do that, saying, “I think we’ll be a much more physical team this year. We have the right guys for that.” Head Coach Kyle Capps echoed the team’s commitment to teamwork: “We’re selfless as having 23 assists on 29 field goals.”

In addition to the focus on X’s and O’s, the team hopes to bring a new energy to Goshen basketball. Bradford said, “We want to just flip the perspective around Goshen, just bring out the fans. Bring out everybody. So just make it fun to watch.” That energy was felt Tuesday night with a full student section in Goshen’s season tip-off versus Concordia University. 

Goshen came out firing from range, shooting 41 threes and 77 total field goals to Concordia’s 56; however, Goshen was only able to connect on 12 of those threes, six of which were made by fifth year transfer Andre Bradford. Coach Capps believes this will change: “This year we have a deep roster of guys who can shoot it and we are looking forward to more shots to go in the basket.” 

Helping carry the offensive load behind Bradford, Richard Wilson, another fifth year transfer, contributed 21 points on an efficient eight of 10 from the field. The only other player to score double digits for the Leaf’s was junior transfer Tariq Humes with 11 points. 

Moving forward, the Leaf’s have a tough test on Friday afternoon against No. 21 Madonna University and then on Saturday against Lawrence Tech. Coach Capps expressed his confidence in the roster: “We demonstrated last night that we are a resilient bunch of guys, we want to keep that rolling.”