ATHENS — Steve Cox’ 20th year as a college head coach presents him with yet another coaching challenge — a lack of experienced size on his basketball roster.

His answer is to combat size with speed.

“We are concerned about being able to guard big men,” Cox said. “We do think we can extend our defense and pressure the ball, and press and trap a little bit, and negate the size difference in that fashion.”

“We have a lot of guards, and we’re really quick and we have a lot of shooters,” said Matthew Parker, a graduate of Mercer Christian Academy. “Everybody on our team can shoot the three, so we can really spread teams out and get them to play our kind of basketball.”

Senior Derek Calloway from Anawalt, a defensive specialist, said, “We have better shooters than we had last year. ... We’re going to have to trap, and we’re going to have to run ’em. That’s what we’re going to have to do.”

Parker can shoot as well. He made 40 percent of his trey attempts, sinking 49 from long-range. “Matt’s been a part of the rotation since he was a freshman,” Cox said.

The annual preseason coaches’ poll released Tuesday lists the Mountain Lions ninth in the 16-team West Virginia Conference. Cox thinks that is likely a leftover from the team’s 10th-place finish (15-14, 9-11 in WVC) last spring.

“We felt at the time we were better than a ninth-place team,” Cox said. “Our hope is to show that we’re better than that. The goal is always to get a first-round playoff game at home.” That would come by finishing eighth or higher.

Another factor in the voting was the loss of Concord’s big man from last year, 6-foot-8 Dannie Parker, who completed his eligibility.

Calloway said, “There’s no replacing a Tyrone Anderson or a Dannie Parker or a Lewis Muse or anything like that. You can’t replace them. But what we have to do is to take our different pieces and complement each other, and use what we have, as a team.”

Derek Lewis, a 6-foot-7 ex-Shady Spring, completed a redshirt year last season. Cox said, “We lost a lot where we lost Dannie Parker. ... That big man spot is an area where we think we’re going to need some help, so we’re hoping Derek can develop there.”

Cox said, “Our key player returning is probably Cordale Boyd. He’s excellent at taking the ball to the basket. He finishes well, finishes on the break well.”

Boyd was seventh in the league in steals last season, with 57, and he averaged 15.3 points per game. “He had a pretty good year,” Cox said. “When you’ve got someone like Dannie Parker, it’s easy to overlook a good player like Cordale.”

At guard, Cox said, “Rafee Smith played a lot as a freshman last year. He shot 42 percent from the three-point line. We think he’s a young man who’s ready to step up and be a good player. Rustin Jessee (the point guard) is a good 3-point shooter, too.”

Two freshmen who played last year for championship high school teams, Cory Willard of Wyoming East and Thomas Brown of Nelson County, Va., are outside threats as well.

Cox said, “I think we could put two or three guys out there at a time and hopefully stretch the defense and open it up for our penetrators — and open it up for our drive-and-kick game.”

Daniel Johnson comes to Concord after being out of basketball the last years, when he worked on the University of Virginia campus. The 6-foot-5 Virginian previously played two years at Potomac State College.

The Mountain Lions begin their season by hosting Alderson-Broaddus on Saturday, Nov. 22, and play in the Currence Classic at Bluefield State College the following weekend.

“It’s kind of crazy,” Cox said. “We’re going to play one of the better teams in the conference in our first game. That wasn’t exactly what we wanted to do, but you’ve got to play them sometime, and you might as well play ’em here.”

“The Currence Classic looks like it’s going to be a strong field,” he added.

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