NGU men’s basketball fight through adversity to find success
Staff Writer, Travis Willmann
Inside NGU’s Hayes Gymnasium. Photo Courtesy of Travis WiIlmann.
It is half way through the 2017-2018 men’s basketball season for the North Greenville Crusaders and it is time for a mid-season overview of how North Greenville’s Men’s basketball team is doing this season. Head coach of the men’s basketball team, Chad Lister, sat down with The Vision Online and answered some questions on how his team is doing this year and where his team is going.
North Greenville started out hot, winning three out of their first four games. However, since then they have fallen short multiple times, they have a current 7-12 record. Lister stated, “We have had the opportunity to win every game except two. We have worked hard to put ourselves in the position to win these games but have just fallen short.”
North Greenville has participated in four overtime games so far this season, coming out victorious twice and losing twice. Lister stated, “The difference between winning these games and losing these games have been just a few points”.
North Greenville is a part of Conference Carolina’s and the difference between third and ninth place right now is only a couple of games. Mt. Olive is at the top of the conference with a 10-0 conference record. However, Lister’s team was tied with Mt. Olive earlier in the year but lost in the final minute.
Lister is confident about his team going into tournament play. Lister said ”We have two players coming back from injury, that will give us our team our senior leadership back.” Lister is pleased with his team’s progress even though his team only has two seniors and hopes that other members of his team step up in the coming weeks.
When asked about next season, Lister stated, “Toby Tate and Moses Merritt are freshmen that can do a lot of good things. Also, I have really good players coming back and coming off a redshirt.”
Lister also stated, “I hope that we can get back to a team like our 2015 championship team that had six seniors.” “Veteran players are what we need to get back to another championship.”
Overall, Lister is very happy with how his guys are playing this year and hopes to make a deep run in both the Conference Carolinas Tournament and the NCAA tournament. He believes once his team gets into late February and into March, they will be ready to make that run that they are capable of making.
