This article originally appeared in the Nugget’s March 12 print issue. Read it here.
The men’s basketball team has had an interesting tip-off this year. Beginning the season with first-year Head Coach and former Edmonton Stinger Adika Peter-McNeilly and only a single player returning from 2023/24, the team experienced a lot of change before they first touched the court in October.
During the offseason, Peter-McNeilly got to work constructing the team’s roster. However, the Head Coach had to utilize his coaching staff to help find potential players.
“I’m not originally from Edmonton,” said Peter-McNeilly. “I had to lean on a lot of my Assistant Coaches knowing the lay of the landscape, going out watching high school tournaments throughout the summer. And then obviously we did a lot of open gyms in the summertime and that’s how we got four of our best players.”
One of those players was Peter-Aluk Deng, an unknown to Peter-McNeilly before he was recruited through the open gyms. “He just came to our open runs, and he was playing really good and we were like, ‘Wait a minute, are you in school?’” Peter-McNeilly explained.
But nearly an entirely new roster of players didn’t come without challenges. “[The] biggest obstacle of preseason I think was trying out a rotation…our preseason games, new people rotating in and out just to see different matchups,” said Peter-McNeilly.
As a new Head Coach with a new crew of Ooks, Peter-McNeilly is focused on creating his own form of coaching.
“I think that’s the beauty of basketball, you kinda take a little bit of everything [from] every coach and every player that you played with…I just took bits and pieces of this coach or this player and just kinda of [thought], ‘Alright, this will be my identity,'” he said.
“And that’s all I’ve been doing with the guys so far and we have a little bit of success with it.”
He started out with only one player returning and little idea of what the season had in store, so Peter-McNeilly had to use the unknown to his advantage.
“I’m a person that likes taking a lot of risk, I think that’s how you should live life, calculated risk,” he explained.
“A lot of our first-year players [knew] this is going to be a risk. Like we’re going to take you, we’re going to develop you into the best player you can possibly be.”
Fortunately, the new Ooks are in good hands with the former professional international athlete, who won a championship with the Edmonton Stingers in 2021 and was named the 2021 Canadian Elite Basketball League’s Sixth Man of the Year. “Obviously I want to put the same effort that I was a player into coaching,” said Peter-McNeilly.
NAIT’s basketball program. “We’re gonna live and learn. Win or lose, we’re gonna use it for the experience for next year…[they’re] just a special group of guys that are willing to work hard, no matter the situation.”
