By: Andrew Nowel, Contributor
The men’s basketball season has finally arrived. With plenty of new faces on the team and the coaching staff, the look is different, but the goal is the same: win a MAAC Championship.
To start the season, Canisius will travel across the country to face the #10 ranked team in the nation, the Arizona Wildcats. “I think the goals are the same every season,” said Head Coach Jim Christian before practice on Tuesday. “You try to get better, you try to see what combinations work well on the floor – who’s retained what we’ve been trying to do, and whether it’s Arizona or someone else, who can understand the things that we need to do to be successful.”
Coach Christian was the first of many new faces for this Golden Griffin team, as he was named the head coach last spring. Christian has plenty of coaching experience at the collegiate level, as he was an assistant for Kent State for the last two seasons. He also served as the head coach at Boston College from 2014-2021 where he led the Eagles to a 19-win season in 2017-2018, a win over top-ranked Duke, and a bid to the National Invitational Tournament, or NIT.
Coach Christian believes honesty to be important to the way the team performs. “I’ll let you know what I’m thinking when I’m thinking it. I think the one thing [the players] really do appreciate is that I’m very honest. I’m very honest of what we expect from each guy, I’m very honest with how I think they did; good, bad, and indifferent. I think that’s what kids really want at the end of the day.”
The Griffs will be leaning on the experience of Coach Christian, as well as junior Paul McMillan IV’s success as a starting guard at NJIT and Central Michigan. McMillan earned a total of 402 points, 104 rebounds, 69 assists, and 26 steals throughout his first two seasons of collegiate basketball.
Coach Christian talked about the knowledge that McMillan and junior returning starting forward Gianni Thompson bring to the team. “They’ve been through this already,” said Coach Christian. “The subtle things don’t always get to them. [They have] the understanding of how hard you have to play to actually have success.”
The Griffs will begin their season on the road against the Wildcats on Monday at 10 p.m., where you can catch the game streaming live on ESPN+.
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