Oct. 14, 2011
• Buy Tickets Online | 2011-12 Schedule | Quick Facts
ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- In preparations for the 2011-12 season, the Navy men's basketball team officially opens practice today with the first of 25 practices scheduled before the season opener on Nov. 11 at Longwood. Nine returnees, including five letterwinners, return from last year's team and first-year head coach Ed DeChellis welcomes 11 newcomers to the mix for the 2011-12 season.
Season tickets are available for the upcoming season online at NavySports.com or by calling 1-800-US4-NAVY. Navy's home opener will be Sunday, Nov. 13, when it hosts Penn State-Altoona at 4:00 pm at Alumni Hall. Fans are also reminded about the lockout promotion where fans can show an article of clothing, game program or old ticket stub with a professional basketball team logo on it at the Alumni Hall Box Office on game day and receive a ticket for just $3. This promotion will run from the beginning of the Navy Basketball season until the return of professional basketball or December 31st, whichever comes first.
PRE-SEASON QUICK NOTES
• Head coach Ed DeChellis became the 19th head coach in 105-year history of Navy basketball on May 23, 2011. He is just the third coach of the Navy basketball program since the 1992-93 season, a span of 20 years (Don DeVoe, 1993-2004; Billy Lange, 2005-11).
• From its returnees coming back, the nine of them have combined for just 102 career starts, with 53 (52.0 percent) coming by senior Jordan Sugars (Winchester, Va.). The total amount of games played by the nine players is just 306, with 87 (28.4 percent) coming by Sugars. The number of minutes played by the nine returnees is 5,072 with 2,327 (45.9 percent) by Sugars.
• Navy ranks as the youngest, least-experienced team in America for the upcoming season. The Midshipmen will boast the second-most freshmen in the country (10; tied with Army) behind Air Force (11) and will be the least experienced team in the country averaging just 0.70 years of experience per player. UC Irvine is second at 0.71 years.
• Senior team captain Jordan Sugars needs just 11 rebounds to become the ninth player (Greg Sprink, Chris Williams, Eddie Reddick, David Robinson, Vernon Butler, Kevin Sinnett, Hank Kuzma and Don Lange) in school history with 1,000 points and 500 rebounds. He enters the season with 1,015 career points and 489 rebounds. Standing just 6-3, Sugars is the shortest member of the group (Don Lange, 1952-54 is next at 6-4).
• Sugars has been named first-team all-Patriot League by virtually every national publication (RushTheCourt.net, Lindy's, Athlon, The Sporting News, CBSSports.com and USA Today).
• Navy enters the year with a 30-26 Patriot League record over the last four years, good for the third-best league record in that span behind American (41-15) and Bucknell (32-24). Navy and American are the lone Patriot League teams to each finish in the league's top four of the standings in each of the last four seasons.
• This year's six-member sophomore class set a school record for most points scored by a freshman class, when the group tallied 762 points a year ago. The group accounted for 36.1 percent of Navy's scoring a year ago.
• Navy is just one of 12 teams nationally (VMI, Belmont, Davidson, Eastern Kentucky, Troy, Notre Dame, Samford, Lafayette, Navy, UT Chattanooga, College of Charleston and BYU) to finish in the top 80 nationally in three-pointers made in each of the last five years. Among the group, Navy's average rank in those five years of 36.8 is ninth overall.
• In 2010-11, Navy finished eighth in the country in steals per game and 10th in turnover margin. Navy's 19.1 turnovers forced per game were the second most in the country behind Duquesne (19.8). Navy forced 19.1 turnovers per game a year ago, the third most in a season in school history. The 592 turnovers forced were the third most in a season in school history.
# GO NAVY #
