Virginia Wesleyan hopes young players will step up

David Macedo expects his Virginia Wesleyan men's basketball team to endure growing pains at some point this season.

The Marlins, who open at 7 p.m. today at home against Salisbury, have no seniors, but plenty of younger players: six freshmen, six sophomores and six juniors.

"With young teams, when you face some adversity, you see what they're made of," said Macedo, entering his 11th season with Wesleyan.

Despite the youth, Macedo is optimistic about continuing the Marlins' recent run of success. Wesleyan has recorded 16 straight winning seasons and six straight Division III NCAA tournament appearances.

Wesleyan went 23-6 last season and reached the second round of the NCAAs, but it lost leading scorer Stephen Fields (20.8 ppg) to graduation. Macedo is confident forward Donald Vaughn, last season's second-leading scorer (15.7), is one of the juniors ready to step up.

Other juniors expected to contribute are Deep Creek High graduate Ed Roberts, Art Crew, Ali Brown (Kecoughtan), Jason Burns and Rakeem Davis (Deep Creek). Roberts and Crew are guards, the rest are forwards.

Forwards Chris Astorga (Cape Henry) and Chris Teasley (Menchville) are among the sophomores expected to contribute.

"We're very athletic and we're deeper than last year," said Macedo, who figures to go 9-10 deep.

Wesleyan's toughest challengers in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference are likely to be Randolph-Macon, which is ranked second nationally in the D3hoops.com preseason poll, and Eastern Mennonite, ranked third. Wesleyan is ranked 12th.

"I think the league is as tough as it has ever been," Macedo said, suggesting it could be better than last season. That's saying something, given that Randolph-Macon and Guilford both made the Final Four.

Macedo said he'd like to see improvement on defense, but noted that his team has developed more in the preseason than it did last year.

Because of that, he likes the Marlins' chances for success - so long as some of his youngsters rise to the occasion.

"I think that when you look at our group, there's a lot of questions that need answers, and we have to see who is ready to step up," Macedo said.