Standards, expectations remain high for retooled Regis men's basketball team in 2022-23

Nov 08 | By: David Wilson, Assistant AD-Communications

DENVER, Colo. — The Regis University men's basketball program knows and embraces their identity.

They are pests. And they wouldn't have it any other way.

Built on the foundations of a relentless defense and versatile offense, the Rangers lived that identity during the 2021-22 season. Regis put together a campaign that saw the team finish 20-10 overall — which included a 14-game winning streak — and a postseason run leading all the way to the RMAC Tournament title game.

Although they were edged, 69-66, by an eventual NCAA Division II Final Four team in Black Hills State University; the run was on brand for a Rangers' squad that started the tournament as a No. 6 seed and the season preseason picked No. 8 in the RMAC Coaches' Preseason Poll.

Fast forward a year and the Rangers, who open their 2022-23 season this weekend at home with primetime matchups against Lubbock Christian (7 p.m. Friday) and St. Mary's University (6 p.m. Saturday), are once again a wildcard in the RMAC. The team had to say goodbye to program cornerstones in Brian Dawson, Will Cranston-Lown and Troy Brady during the offseason. But they restocked the cupboard with a talented eight-man recruiting class that fits the mold their predecessors helped establish.

"Regis basketball will continue to have a lot of trademarks that we've always had. I think you can still expect us to play with some pace. You can still expect us to error on the side of wanting to pressure and disrupt, defensively, while moving and sharing the ball, offensively," said Regis head men's basketball coach, Brady Bergeson. "The brand will be tweaked in terms of the nuts and bolts of it. We're going to play more to our strengths, which might be a little different than last year's strengths, but I don't think there will be any real wholesale changes either. We have recruited and developed a certain type of player and versatility in different spots. We really like to play to that and will continue to play to that. We definitely have a team full of our kind of guys."

NEWCOMERS: Included in that eight-man recruiting class is three transfers the Rangers expect to make immediate impacts in graduate student guard David Simental, graduate student forward Jas Singh and sophomore guard CJ Reed.

Simental will be a familiar face to RMAC basketball fans after he starred at Colorado State University Pueblo during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, twice earning Second Team All-RMAC Honors. He then then spent the 2021-22 season at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, where he averaged 18.8 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game en route to being named Third Team All-MIAA before making his way to Denver.

Singh comes to Regis after three seasons at Simon Fraser University, where he started 50 of his 64 career games and averaged 13.8 points and 4.9 rebounds per contest while shooting 40.6% from 3-point distance.

As for Reed, he spent the 2021-22 season at Citrus College, starting all 29 games for the Owls and averaged 12 points per game.

"David is a proven All-Conference player at this level. He's a really good guard, experienced and in all likelihood will have a chance to have a nice professional career when he's done here," Bergeson said. "Jas brings some real offensive versatility to our front line and can be a difficult matchup for a lot of teams. And CJ is our other transfer that came in. He has three years left with us and he's a guy who can guard, play off the ball and can really be a shot in the arm for us in terms of just bringing energy and hustle."

Regis is also excited to welcome in five freshmen – Dylan Forbord, Chase Mayo Harmon, Vojin Mastilovic, Joshua Pearre and Aaron Ofstun — who will have opportunities to provide depth and play meaningful roles right away in 2022-23.

"Our freshman class is exciting because I think a number of them have a chance to help us this year," Bergeson said. "I think we're going to rely on some of those guys at some level in terms of depth if not more. We've got a lot of exciting new guys here that I think our fans will really enjoy watching and getting to know."

RETURNERS: The newcomers join an established group of returners, including RMAC Players to Watch in sophomore forward Brayden Carter, as well as senior forward Aaron Bokol and a healthy Eddy Egun, who averaged 8.9 points and 3.4 rebounds in 19.6 minutes per game last year before he had his season cut short seven games in due to injury.

Carter averaged 6.8 points and 3.1 rebounds a game in 15.4 minutes as a true freshman. After adding 25 pounds in the offseason, the 6-foot, 9-inch forward is primed to take the next step in his development as the Rangers' starting five this winter.

As for Bokol, the senior has excelled in his role as the Rangers' super sub off the bench the past three seasons, averaging 8.4 points and 8.1 points, respectively, the past two years. As the lone four-year senior of this year's team, Bergeson said Bokol and Egun have assumed the team leadership roles.

"Bokol is potentially the real difference maker for us. He came off the bench last year, but he was very much a starter in terms of role and expectations for us last year. And he's a guy who has played legitimate minutes for us since he was a freshman," Bergeson said. "Aaron has really taken on a leadership role and takes a lot of pride and ownership of this team. He and Eddy have taken on this void of leadership that we lost with the amount of guys that left last year."

Rounding out the group of returners for the Rangers are three young pieces in sophomores Aidan Sevilla (17 games played) and Ryan Kent (four games played), as well as Gavaskar Sharp II, who used a redshirt year in 2021-22.

Regis was able to get a head start on incorporating all its new personnel over the summer when the team embarked on a 10-day foreign tour to Greece, allowing the players to bond over the experience on and off the court.

"It's hard to articulate how important that trip was when you factor in the weeks of practice leading up to it, the travel over and back, and the whole intensive experience that we had in Greece. It ended up near a month long of extensive team building," Bergeson said. "There's no question we're off to a faster start now having had that time together on that trip, but probably the most valuable thing we got from that was the time spent together. When you replace more than half your roster, but you're able to start in this sort of intensive retreat mode that we were in, it accelerates the process and we're probably a month ahead of where we otherwise would be."

LOOKING FORWARD: That head start could prove to be essential immediately for the Rangers, who were picked No. 6 in this year's RMAC Preseason Coaches' Poll, as they prepare for a grueling non-conference schedule to start the 2022-23 season. The grind begins this Friday and Saturday with matchups against No. 16 Lubbock Christian — the top-seeded team in the South Central Region last year — and a solid St. Mary's team picked No. 7 in the Lonestar Conference preseason poll.

"You have to hit the ground running at this level. There's really no warm up to important games," Bergeson said. "They're both tough regional games that mean a lot when we get to the end of the road in terms of splitting hairs between who gets in and who is out. We always have a bit of the long term in mind. We prepare and practice with urgency each day, but we also know in the back of our minds we're trying to play our best basketball in February and March."

As for the key to reaching that early spring crescendo, Bergeson said the Rangers are focused on consistency, and the duration of that consistency with their play, as they take aim at another postseason run in 2022-23.

"We've got to learn what it means to sustain efforts with great urgency and intensity over the course of time, which is something I think you can say about every team that is trying to break into the mold of being an upper echelon team," Bergeson said. "And that's how I view this team. I think we have ambitious goals that we're not going to shy away from or apologize for. Our guys come here knowing that there is a standard of championship play expected out of them. And that's what we strive for. So, when it gets right down to it, where we are right now compared to where we need to be in a few months, I think we really need to learn how to sustain efforts at the highest levels of intensity and urgency."

MEN'S BASKETBALL LINKS
Live Video: https://rmacnetwork.com/regisrangers/
Live Stats: https://regisrangers.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary
Tickets: https://regisrangers.com/sports/2021/7/1/hometown-ticketing.aspx

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