For the first time ever in the school’s basketball program’s history, the Nipissing Lakers Varsity Men’s Basketball team will be competing against a team from the NCAA.
The Lakers are preparing for an exhibition contest at Humber College on Thursday night against Navy.
Chris Cheng, the Lakers head coach says he hopes this is the first of many NCAA exhibition contests.
“This is something we definitely needed to do to get our guys active and get our guys together but also to get them playing against better competition and just to see where they are at too and see where we are at,” said Cheng during practice Wednesday afternoon.
“It is early in the offseason but it gives us a good outlook to know where we are going to go from here and where we want to be coming September.”
Marcus Lewis, a 6-4 guard with the Lakers, is thrilled with the chance to play NCAA competition.
“It is a great opportunity, we have never played against an NCAA team and it just shows our growth and our determination to obviously get better and play higher level of competition,” he said prior to practice Wednesday.
Cheng believes the difference will be that at the NCAA level the size, athleticism, and strength of the players is the biggest difference.
“I think where we shrink that gap is the fundamentals of our players,” said Cheng.
“The fundamentals that we have and we teach, the concepts how we play here in Canada it gives us an opportunity to compete and the majority of the times now, is win against those programs so I am looking forward how our guys compete against this competition.”
