Gantt a Second Team All-Conference selection, Jarvis praises newcomers Moody and Sekelja

For the past three seasons shooting guard Greg Gantt has led the Owls in scoring.

This upcoming season the senior has a good chance to repeat that feat, but will have to do so for a squad returning just five lettermen from a year ago.

Wednesday morning Head Coach Mike Jarvis addressed the issue along with a slew of others at the annual Sun Belt Conference Media Day.

“I’m really excited, I’m very excited. I think we have a really good team and should be in the hunt for the Sun Belt Championship,” Jarvis said.

Florida Atlantic comes into the season after a disappointing 2011- 2012 campaign which ended with an offseason rattled by player departures. However, what does return is a team charged by veteran players and a group of newcomers that should have Owls fans excited about basketball.

Gantt was selected to the Preseason Second Team All-Sun Belt team at the beginning of the day, and looks poised for another solid voyage in his final year with the program.

“Greg is a great shooter. I expect him to make a high percentage of three’s, plus he is a pretty good post-up guy. He’s a tough matchup,” Jarvis said.

While Gantt is on pace to becomes the school’s all-time leading scorer, Jarvis believes that this season should be the first one in which he will have an offensive supporting cast besides him.

“He could do it again this year (lead the Owls in scoring), but he will have a lot more offensive weapons with him than he has had before,” Jarvis said.

One of those scoring threats will be a familiar face for Owls fans in junior guard Pablo Bertone. Jarvis mentioned that the ball-handler is currently playing as good of basketball as anyone on the team and felt that he and Gantt together could from a lethal duo of guards.

Jarvis mentioned how both players can score from the inside or outside and posses the ability to rebound the ball.

In addition to Bertone, lies another weapon in 7-foot center Dragan Sekelja. The Croatian-born big man sat out all of last season after transferring from Baylor, but Jarvis feels that the junior should be able to contribute right away.

“He’s going to give us a presence in the lane that we haven’t had since Brett Royster. Brett was a defensive presence, but
Drajan is going to give us an offensive one, plus he is a good post passer,” Jarvis said.

A large body is something that the Owls have been missing under the basket, and Sekelja’s ability to distribute the ball from the paint is only good news. Jarvis stated that the center had a “real European” style of passing, alluding to his ability to kick the ball outside while working in the post.

The biggest splash of the morning came when Jarvis talked about freshmen point guard Stefan Moody.

Like Sekelja, Moody will be a new face in the lineup, but according to Jarvis he already is one of the most talented players in the nation.

“We got a kid that can play with any team in the country, and I mean play on any team in the country and compete for a starting position,” Jarvis said.  “He is that good.”

Moody has only been on campus for a few months, but the 5’10” 170-pound guard has made the most out of the limited opportunities in front of the coaching staff.

Jarvis referred to the freshmen as “lightening quick,” “explosive” and the “real deal.” He went on to remark that he wouldn’t be surprised if the guard dunked on some of the 6’8” players in the conference, as he has seen him already do it in practice.

The veteran coach expressed that he will need to push Moody to take shots this season, but that’s only because the newcomer doesn’t play a selfish style of basketball.

“I have been coaching a long time and there aren’t many players that I have coached that have the raw talent and potential that he does,” Jarvis said.

Moody will be assigned the crucial task of replacing point guards Alex Tucker and Ray Taylor, and a lot will be asked of him from the start of the season.

“He is going to be the key to our team, even though he is just a freshman,” Jarvis said.

If the chemistry is there and everyone stays out of Jarvis' doghouse, they should take the Belt.

No love = good times.

Let them rely on last years results, and Mitchell hype.

We beat them.

SBC Men's Basketball is the same as football - anyone's game for the most part.

Good fodder to post, but the results seem to always vary in the end.

Yes, we are included in that statement…….

;D

Can't wait to get this season going!

I think Owl fans are really looking for any team that can win right now.

I love being ranked 4th in the East.  If we can win the games we are supposed to win; win a couple we are not supposed to win on the road, and be competitive in the bag games for a half…this could be a really fun time.

The downside is we have lots of freshman, which may or may not be a downside, but you never know until you see the team play together.  The upside is that I think we have weeded out the selfish players and can focus on winning as a team. 

to play devils advocate, he said the exact same thing about Ray Taylor when he came in. like verbatim. “We got a kid that can play with any team in the country, and I mean play on any team in the country and compete for a starting position,” Jarvis said.  “He is that good.”

he also said he has to make Taylor stays 4 years before he gets drafted, something like that.

i hoping for the best but not getting excited until they actually produce.

I hope they surprise everyone and do well and actually win some games in the conference tournament, but I have to agree with Exit to an extent. Every year we hear how this team is so good and we're going to surprise some people and we've got some great players.

2 seasons ago was very exciting to win the regular season conference but it doesn't mean anything if you don't win the conference tournament and make the big dance. I understand that may not happen this year, but it would be nice to actually win a game in the tournament and build from there. Every year we have high expectations for all of our sports teams and every year we seem to be let down when it's over

Exit39 said

to play devils advocate, he said the exact same thing about Ray Taylor when he came in. like verbatim. “We got a kid that can play with any team in the country, and I mean play on any team in the country and compete for a starting position,” Jarvis said.  “He is that good.”

He never said that about Taylor, he said he was a special player, but not that he could play on any team in the country.

Kore White was the only guy he has eluded to as potentially having post college ability, aside from Royster - who has already achieved that.

Jab979 said

Every year we hear how this team is so good and we're going to surprise some people and we've got some great players.

From what I've read, it sounds like we'll be good but I'm not going to lie and say I know enough about the other SBC teams that we clearly have the most superior players. I've only seen highlight tapes of these kids.

Even with the FAU team we had when we won the championship two years ago, there were still nights when people didn't show up. Ray was usually good for 15 and Gantt was good for what, 15-21 on average, but other touted guys like Dennis Mavin could post 15 points one game and 1 point in another.

The upside here is that most of the current team seems to have averaged double digit points in their previous life so hopefully that will carry over to a higher level of competition without too much drop-off. I'm excited to see these guys play. I really hope we can live up to Jarvis' proclamation at Owl Madness.

Jab979 said

2 seasons ago was very exciting to win the regular season conference but it doesn't mean anything if you don't win the conference tournament and make the big dance.

^This.

Bugs the sh*t out of me that we (or anyone else in the SBC) can absolutely dominate all season long and then a losing team like UALR can take it from us in the end and then embarrass themselves as the only automatic qualifier from the SBC. I don't know how many times this has to happen before the conference decides to work on getting one spot for the regular season winner and one spot for the tournament winner (if they're the same team, that will go up as an at-large bid).

The best way to fix that is win. Win in the tournament and you won't have a problem. But, things happen not every team that wins the reg. season conference will end up winning the conference tournament. Just have to have a few impressive wins under your belt. For a few years in a row we had WKU and USA both make the filed of 64. WKU getting to the sweet 16.

Have to beat some of these teams with better RPI or teams considered to be good mid majors, like a Dayton