Eastern Connecticut State University Brenden Young Joins Men's Basketball for the Season-Opener

2014 Nov 13

Brenden Young '18, of Amston majoring in Exploratory Prof. Studies, is part of this year's Eastern Connecticut State University's men's basketball team.

The Eastern Connecticut State University men's basketball team graduated four seniors after the 2013-14 season. Two of those four seniors accounted for almost 40 percent of the Eastern offense last year: Mike Garrow was the program's first Little East Conference Player-of-the-Year and first NABC All-America, and Brian Salzillo was a first team all-conference selection and among the nation's top three-point snipers.

The Warriors will enter the 2014-15 season with only one senior, tri-captain Brandon Yarborough (Stamford). With such a young team, 13th-year head coach Bill Geitner is hoping the players returning this season can take valuable experiences from last season.

In terms of a leader, Geitner was reluctant to point to anyone with certainty during the pre-season. "It's a very important question we need to have an answer for," said Geitner, who has found plenty of answers in directing the Warriors to five consecutive 20-win seasons and to the first unbeaten conference season (14-0) last year in LEC history and an overall 23-7 record and fifth straight post-season tournament appearance.

"Michael (Garrow) was our vocal leader (last year)," notes Geitner, whose second win this year will move him to the top of the list in wins among all head coach in program history. "He was able to bring guys together during good times and bad times."

With the loss of two great offensive players, Geitner also believes the scoring will need to become a group effort. "From a scoring standpoint, I think we're going to ask a group of guys to hopefully become more efficient on the offensive end," he assesses.

Unfortunately, the team has been hit hard with the injury bug in the pre-season, where only three of 16 roster players had a perfect attendance record.

Due to the injury situation, Geitner is still uncertain of how deep this year's team is. "I think we have a nice combination of returners and new guys, so we're excited to have everyone back healthy because that's the way we're all going to get better."

Last season, the Warriors relied heavily on their backcourt, which consisted of guard Trachone Preston (Enfield) - a junior tri-captain this year -- Salzillo, and Garrow. With a young team overall, the Warriors may have to rely on different players. However, Preston, junior tri-captain and combination guard Kevin Leumene (Stamford) and slashing sophomore forward Hugh Lindo (Enfield) could be the bulk of the Eastern offense.

Last year's third-best scorer (16.1 ppg.) and this year's top returning scorer, Preston is the only returning player that has proved to be a consistent scorer. This may be the first time in Preston's career that he's the player opposing teams strictly focus on. "As he evolves and his game evolves and guys above him have graduated, he's taken on a bigger role each and every year and I can anticipate that again because his game has grown," said Geitner. He also said that Preston would be focused on getting his teammates involved.

Leumene has had an interesting career. After being injured throughout the majority of his freshman year, he came off the bench last season and added a spark to the Eastern lineup. When Salzillo went down due to an illness, Leumene was added to the starting lineup. Geitner is asking that his consistency this year be consistent. "The natural next step is for Kevin to slide into the role of being a consistent producer offensively and defensively," said Geitner.

The 6-foot-4 inch Lindo (10.6 rpg.) opened a lot of eyes his freshman year with his athletic ability, cracking the record book for rebounds in a season. This season, the team will look for Lindo to diversify his game. "We told him to work on his offensive skill development over the off-season. Now, his role expands and it would be nice to see offensive growth as we will need him."

The 6-foot-4 inch Yarborough has made an impact on the program Day 1. "Brandon has been a vocal player and now as he's evolved and is a senior, he's got to be that leader to step into the void that the seniors left last season, "points out the head coach. Geitner also added that Yarborough would be another one of the players in the "bunch" of players the team will rely to play well and consistently this season.

Additional returnees include juniors Michael-Thomas Sciro (Westerly, RI) and Matthew Sterner (Plymouth), and sophomores Alex Borofsky (Southington), David Canny (Torrington) and Brandon Kuczenski (Naugatuck). The 6-foot-5 inch Kuczenski is the most experienced among that group, having started 19 games last year and averaging just under 20 minutes.

Expected to join Yarborough, Preston, Lindo and Leumene in the starting lineup in the season-opener is freshman guard Tarchee Brown (Manchester), who Geitner rates as one of the more athletic players he has had in the program.

Freshman point guard Collin Jordan (Cheshire) - who played all 40 minutes in the team's final scrimmage of the pre-season - should log plenty of minutes, as well.

"This is the most athletic team that I've ever had here, and one of the most athletic teams (in New England)," Geitner contends. We weren't built that way last year. As a (coaching) staff, we need to let them explore the transition (game). This will be new to us (the staff) and them."

The Warriors open the season Saturday at 5 p.m. against Newbury College in the annual Eastern Tip-Off Tournament at Francis E. Geissler Gymnasium.

If further information or photographs are requested, please contact Sport Information Director, Bob Molta at, 860-465-5172, molta@easternct.edu.