REXBURG-After two early morning tryout sessions in
the BYU-Idaho Center the coaches gathered in the bowels of the Hart building
were they took the next step toward building a championship team basketball
team, by drafting the players that had caught their attention during the
tryouts.
Before the drafting process began where emotions
would run high and players would be snapped up like eBay bids the league
coordinator Matt Fletcher stated the principles of the school’s athletic
program.
1. Participants make and keep commitments.
2. Participants love, serve and lift one another.
3. Participants govern themselves by true
principles.
4. Coaches invite the spirit by teaching gospel,
institutional and sports specific principles.
5. Quality management, raise expectations of
outcome provide offerings that leave students interest that are appropriate and
balanced.
John Christansen was the first overall pick in this
year’s draft.
He was followed by Stephen Speyer, Patrick Johnson,
Dallin Layton, Ferguson Gammon, Nate Birrell and Justin Cook.
Bruins’ coaches Brandon Pelfrey and Spencer Flitton
didn’t hesitate to answer the question “what’s next for your team?” by saying,
simply, “a championship.”
Spartan’s Head Coach Tyler Beck said that the next
step for his team is to, “create unity in our team. It really is like a culture
that we have to have as a team. There’s no player that’s better than the other”
(He sounds a lot like a high school basketball coach from Indiana doesn’t he?
Look it up movie buffs).
Coach Beck was looking for players who showed that
they where coachable, humble and “willing to be pushed to a higher level as a
team . . . if a team is changing, a player will change.”
Coach Beck also had a message for the students of
BYU-Idaho, “Come out to the games because it will be good basketball, it will
be fun to watch [and] entertaining.”
Sixty-three players were drafted the first night
and the remaining players were drafted the following night.
There are no cuts in the league. Those players who
make a team’s Junior Varsity squad will participate in practice and are
expected to play with their varsity teammates should circumstances permit them
to do so.
The regular season is scheduled to tip off on Oct.
12 at 5:30 P.M. in the main gym of the Hart building.
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