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2010 Quick Facts
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2010 Schedule
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2010 Roster
Ryan Looney begins his first season as the head men's basketball coach at Seattle Pacific University after an extremely successful five-year stint at Eastern Oregon. He takes charge of a team that returns four starters and was picked by rival coaches to win the Great Northwest Athletic Conference championship.
Coach Looney sat down this week with SPUfalcons.com to talk about the upcoming season that starts Friday, Nov. 6 with a 7 p.m. home exhibition game against Simon Fraser at Brougham Pavilion.
SPUfalcons.com: What are your thoughts now that basketball practice has started?
Ryan Looney: “I'm excited about it. Excited to keep the tradition alive in our program and to continue to build upon that. It's exciting to take over a group where there are 12 returning players. Anytime you start a new job there is stress involved with that. Having 12 people who are familiar with SPU and the Great Northwest Athletic Conference maybe relieves a little bit of that stress on my end.”
SPUfalcons.com: How has the transition to Seattle Pacific been so far?
RL: “It's the second time I've done it in my coaching career, so I think I learned a lot going through it the first time. I've tried to not make some of the same mistakes that I made before. Patience on my end with the student-athletes on our team is important. We're trying to teach a whole new system offensively and I know that's going to take time. There's going to be some days of practice where we have some growing pains. Myself and my assistant coaches will work through that with those players."
SPUfalcons.com: Having been in the Pacific Northwest at Eastern Oregon, what is the perception of Seattle Pacific from the outside?
RL: “Student-athletes and their families perceive SPU as a special place. We are trying to convey that same message to people that we are recruiting too. From the outside looking in, if you were involved with a player that was also considering Seattle Pacific, you knew that it was probably going to be tough. That's exciting now to be the person that's in charge.”
SPUfalcons.com: You have been in Seattle for several months now. What is it that makes SPU such a unique and special place?
RL: “For me and definitely within our program there's an interesting combination of things that make it special. It's a Christian university, the size of the campus is not necessarily too big and it is located right in Seattle. Then, obviously, the tradition within the basketball program itself is great. If you combine all of those things you won't find another school in the Northwest, regardless of level, that can match those things. One thing that we've talked a lot about with the guys on our current team and people that we are potentially recruiting as well, is that we believe every day when we come to work that we have a realistic chance to win a national championship. How many other institutions would be able to say that?”
SPUfalcons.com: Which returning players to you anticipate playing the biggest roles this season?
RL: “That's a tough question. We've tried to narrow it down a little bit in practice in regards to who may play and who may not. At this point, we're still a little bit undetermined. We have a scrimmage situation and two exhibitions coming up. Those are some things we will work through before we play our first counting game against Dominican. You can look at statistics from last year and watch tape and there's a number of guys that contributed in the past and I would foresee contributing in the future as well.”
SPUfalcons.com: Have you done any unique team-building activities?
RL: “I have in the past, but we have not done any this year to this point. The biggest reason why is we're trying to not waste any practice time in regards to putting in our system on offense.”
SPUfalcons.com: Which newcomers do you anticipate making an immediate impact?
RL: “We've added two new players who are both very talented. One is
Ryan Sweet from Whatcom Community College. He's a 6-foot-7 post player that had a great year last year in the NWAACC. He was first-team all-region and averaged nearly 20 points and 10 rebounds per game. If you look at statistics from a year ago, one area that SPU could have done a better job in is rebounding. Ryan definitely provides a service in that area.
“Then we added
Scott Morse from Cascade Christian in Medford, Oregon. He was the Oregon 3A player of the year in high school. He is 6-foot-7 and can play outside as well as inside. He's done a great job developing his body in the weight room and I would see him as somebody that will be able to contribute a lot to this program during his four years here.”
SPUfalcons.com: What can Falcons fans expect from a Ryan Looney-coached team?
RL: “Once we've laid our groundwork in regards to practice habits and system, I would say that on most game nights our team will play hard. We will be a mid-tempo type team and place a huge emphasis on possessions. Most importantly in that regard will be rebounding.”
SPUfalcons.com: SPU was picked to win the conference in the GNAC coaches poll. What do you think about that?
RL: “Over the entire summer, out on the road recruiting, the coaches in our conference told me that they were probably going to pick us number one. That is an interesting situation for anybody in their first year as the head coach. Normally your team wouldn't be picked first in the first year, regardless of who the coach is. That's a credit to the players that we have returning in our program. If our staff has done one thing right during the transition it was to hurry up and get here and to make sure that all of the guys are back on board. And we've done a good job with that because, obviously they all made a decision to return. And they've done a nice job buying into doing what we are asking them to do. Change isn't easy, not for anybody. But, I think all of us together have embraced it.”
SPUfalcons.com: How do you expect the GNAC race to shape up?
RL: “I've watched a lot of tape from last season and my team's at Eastern Oregon played some of the teams from the GNAC in recent years and then I've tried to talk to as many people too. So, I have an understanding of what we are up against. Regardless of what league you are playing in, conference games will all be a battle. You've got to be prepared for each one.
I know Western Washington and Central Washington will be very talented. Montana State Billings probably had the best recruiting class in the whole entire conference, so they'll be much improved. Northwest Nazarene has continued to get a better and I would imagine that they would take even another step this next year. Alaska Anchorage is always tough and Saint Martin's had a great year a year ago. I guess they probably expect this year to not be any different. I would imagine each night it's going to be a little bit of a struggle.”
SPUfalcons.com: What are your goals for your first season at SPU?
RL: “If you were to ask our players, our goals are pretty high. Amongst our group so far, some of those are still yet to be determined. Right now our goal is to implement a system on offense and on defense and for our group to get better every single day that we're in the gym. As we progress in that area, our goals as a team will probably be determined at that time.”
SPUfalcons.com: How much of the schedule were you responsible for?
RL: “When I got here on June 8, we still needed to find six counting games and some exhibitions. So, we didn't put the whole thing together ourselves, but we did have some work to do over the course of the summer to finish it. I've always been a big believer in playing as many home games as possible. If you look at our schedule closely, we have 17 of them. In my coaching career, my teams have done a great job protecting homecourt, for lack of a better term. I think that those are some of the same principles that we'll instill in our team here as well. We're excited to get to play at home that many times. It should help increase our attendance when people know that they can attend games regularly rather than kind of hit-and-miss.
"We're excited in regards to the opponents on our schedule. Even though we had to do it late, we got a lot of in-region games. We have a nice mix of opponents where we should have a great chance to be competitive and also some opponents that will challenge us as well.”
