By Marcus Uhe
A pair of US college basketballers and some NBL1 veterans are set to power a new-look Casey Cavaliers squad this season, beginning this weekend against Dandenong.
Injuries and retirement forced the club’s hand in the recruitment space, with 10 new faces to wear the Cavs colours in 2023.
Guard, Jack Perry brings six years of NCAA experience from his stints at Eastern Washington University and University of Portland, while forward Hunter Marks returns to Victoria from four seasons at the University of Hartford, and one at Sacramento State.
The Cavs have also added Jack’s brother, Mason, and between them, Marks, Malcolm Bernard and Preston Bungei, coach David Peters has a crop of ball-handlers he can trust.
“It just takes the pressure off the main one or two scorers that we have, that they don’t have to create for themselves all the time, or have multiple people being able to create for them as well,” Peters said.
“And we’ve got a couple of guys who have come up from Youth League as well, a couple of really good guards who are ball handlers and can play out of pick-and-rolls.”
Having finished 15th in their first season in NBL1, Peters and the Cavs recruiting staff identified the need for malleable players as a necessity to mix it in their new competitive environment.
“For the most part we brought in a number of good individual defenders, something we knew we had to cover-off last year as we almost felt like we were filling holes with our defence,” Peters said.
“We’ve also brought in players that can play multiple positions, so we’re probably a lot more versatile and a lot faster than we were last year.
“At times I felt like we were maybe a little bit big and slow against the more mobile teams, so those are the two main things that we really attacked in the off-season; improving our versatility across positions and improving our ability to have really good individual defenders who can guard both on the perimeter and inside if we needed to.”
The Cavs’ men’s side gets underway against the Ranges at 8pm on Saturday at the Dandenong Basketball Stadium, with the women playing at 6pm.
