UAB Tips Off New Season With Key Game Against Vermont
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - November 3, 2024
The Vermont men’s basketball team is coming to Alabama for the opportunity to show college basketball fans what college basketball coaches already know.
“These are two NCAA Tournament teams,” Vermont head coach John Becker said of bringing his team South to play UAB in Monday’s season opener at 6:30 p.m. at Bartow Arena and follow with a game at Auburn on Wednesday. “Auburn is a Top 10 team, Top 20 team in the country, depending on what poll you look at. UAB is picked to win the American Conference, which is a very, very good conference. They won it last year. Both teams are littered with NBA prospects. We’re going to have our hands full and we’re going to have to play a lot better than we’ve played (in two exhibition games). But, I know our guys are really excited for the challenge. The nice thing about these games is we become the underdog, we become the hunter. I think the guys always look forward to those type of challenges.”
Take a glance at Becker’s Vermont resume and it doesn’t take long to figure out he’s turned the Catamounts into one of the top mid-major programs in the country. In his 13 seasons as a head coach at Vermont, Becker is 308-120 overall and 117-31 in American East Conference games. His teams have won 10 consecutive American East regular season titles and played in six NCAA Tournaments, including the past three. Take away the Covid-shortened season, when his team was 10-5, and the Catamounts won at least 20 games in each of his seasons as the head coach.
“We knew they were good, we didn't know they were this good until we decided to do the game,” said UAB head coach Andy Kennedy. “Think about this, over John Becker’s 13 seasons there, they’re averaging 24 wins a year, eight straight times they won their league, been to last three NCAA Tournaments. So this is a group that understands winning. They have a culture of winning. They're returning seven of their top nine off last year's team. These kids are not going to be here in awe, by any means, and looking forward to the opportunity that our team presents.”
UAB’s Yaxel Lendeborg and Efrem “Butta” Johnson are not only college basketball players but they are college basketball fans. Both said earlier this week that they knew Vermont had a good program but also knew very little about them before studying for Monday night’s game.
“I’ve heard about the program, but I didn’t know about the complete foundation,” Lendeborg said. “Once I watched the film, I found out they were a great team.”
Johnson said the style that Becker’s team traditionally plays with is challenging.
“They don’t stand around much,” Johnson said. “They’re always moving, always cutting. Defensively, they’re connected as a group. They play tight and together, grinding and fighting and stuff. They play at a slower pace than us, similar to a team that we play in our conference, North Texas. They play slow, really good on defense, they stay patient, that’s tough. You got to come out and decide to get them out of their game.”
Patience might not be the hallmark of this Vermont team, particularly with Shamir Bogues, an athletic 6-foot-4, 190-pound senior, setting the tone. Bogues, who played three seasons at Tarleton State, was the American East Newcomer of the Year after averaging 11.3 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.9 steals in his first season at Vermont.
“We’re trying to evolve,” Becker told Catamount TV Insider in a preseason interview. “I think we’ll play faster, offensively this year, better pace. But the hallmarks of our team will still be defense, rebounding, toughness and not beating ourselves. But we’re going to try to play fast this year and see what that does for our offense. I think it’s going to generate a lot of easier shots for our guys. I thought last year we ran into trouble when we didn’t have a post-up option. Some of those possessions get stagnant. We found ourselves struggling to score at times. Hopefully we can take advantage of Shamir and the pace that’s he’s going to be able to set in getting the ball up the court.”
Bogues and 6-foot-4 junior guard TJ Long, the team’s top two returnees, missed the team’s exhibition opener because of injuries. The Catamounts struggled to a 68-66 victory over Division II member Saint Anselm. Bogues returned to the lineup in the second exhibition game and the Catamounts beat Division II member St. Michael’s, 80-55. Long, who led the Catamounts in 3-pointers last year with 77, did not play in the second exhibition game.
Vermont has a veteran team with six seniors or graduate students, including Bogues and Long,
“The problem is we’ve had more preseason injuries than I’ve ever had in my career,” Becker told Catamount TV Insider. “We’re lucky to have 10 guys available for practice sometimes. It’s been real hard to gauge where we are in general. The defense made a huge jump this week. My expectation is we could have one of, it not the best, defensive team we’ve had since I’ve been here. We still have a long way to go, obviously, on both sides of ball but we’re improving rapidly.”