Tom Moore optimistic despite Quinnipiac's roster overhaul

Tom Moore replaces both of his leading scorers with several new faces as Quinnipiac begins its third season in Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. (Photo courtesy of Big Apple Buckets)

Losing two of the better four-year players in program history is never easy, much less when you have to count on a confluence of variables to get the job done.

Tom Moore is experiencing this firsthand at Quinnipiac this season after seeing a pair of the Bobcats' finest basketball alumni in Zaid Hearst and Ousmane Drame graduate this past May, but as the former Jim Calhoun deputy enters his ninth season at the helm in Hamden, he remains mostly excited about what lies ahead.

"I'm really happy with the job my staff did in the early part of the signing period and the late part of the signing period," he recounted with regard to filling out a roster where not just Hearst and Drame graduated, but also two key role players in Evan Conti and Justin Harris. "It's very rare to feel just as comfortable and confident with who you took early and who you took late, but I think that's the case."

Among the earlier commitments Moore secured are a pair of junior college transfers in 6-9 forward Donovan Smith and junior guard Daniel Harris, who will join fifth-year senior Will Simonton, who arrives from Illinois-Chicago, as the more experienced newcomers on the Bobcat roster. Together, the three arrive along with freshmen Abdulai Bundu, a 6-8 forward from Maryland, and 6-6 twin wings Andrew and Aaron Robinson.

"I'm excited," Moore reassured when assessing his squad. "We're extremely inexperienced in terms of college games in a Quinnipiac uniform, but we do have some with Giovanni McLean, who played two years in junior college and sat out for us, Donovan Smith played two years in junior college, and Will Simonton played three years at Illinois-Chicago. So even though they're new to Quinnipiac, they have a sense of college basketball, what it takes, the demands and physicality that comes with it. I'm very excited about how we'll plug the pieces. So far, I like how we're taking shape right now."

Picked seventh in the preseason MAAC coaches' poll, the Bobcats will be more of an unknown without the all-conference talents of Hearst and Drame, but their coach looks at the glass half-full, hinting that this season's team can be more versatile than his units of years past.

"I think we could have a chance to be more versatile defensively," Moore said. "We've been very straightforward in our halfcourt man-to-man. It's not like Virginia's pack line, but it's along those lines. We don't force many turnovers, we don't get many steals, but it's helped make our rebounding totals so strong. I do think because of our versatility, and we've got pretty good size at the five position, even with the shot clock being reduced by five seconds, I do think we might be able to show a few more looks, and it might be really effective for us."

In addition to McLean in the backcourt, Ayron Hutton and Dimitri Floras return for their sophomore seasons after promising rookie campaigns, but the elder statesman is now James Ford, the Bobcats' lone four-year guard, a rare sight under Moore's tenure. Up front, only three forwards return from last year's team, a trio of sophomores in Chaise Daniels, Samuel Dingba, and Alain Chigha. With only half of the roster back again, Moore admitted his concern for not having as many familiar faces when Quinnipiac tips off their season Friday against Sacred Heart, but was assuaged somewhat when speaking with his mentor earlier in the offseason.

"I was talking to Coach (Jim) Calhoun, he came down to watch one of our practices," he revealed, "and I told him the biggest thing I'm concerned about is, as a head coach, you get butterflies at the start of the game and when you look at the faces, it's unnerving when you don't have two or three or four faces that have done it for you at a really high level in the past, and it's really comforting when you do. With this group, until we become something, those first couple of weeks are going to be a little unnerving, but I have a ton of faith that guys will be emerge, and that's the fun of it. I'm positive that there will be a whole lot of them that will make the progress I hope, and as we are every year, we'll be a difficult team to beat once we start getting into it."