This story originally ran in The Standard-Times on Nov. 22, 2002.

By Nick Tavares
Standard-Times correspondent

With the UMass Dartmouth men's basketball team's season opener scheduled for tonight, the Corsairs find themselves with both a strong outlook and some key injuries that will force them to adjust.

After finishing the season with a 21-8 record, UMD was bounced in last season's Little East tournament in the semifinals by Western Connecticut, but later went on to win the Eastern College Athletic Conference championship, defeating Salve Regina and Plymouth State along the way.

The Corsairs will be looking to take the Little East tournament this year in hopes of earning an NCAA tournament bid, but they will have a rougher road getting there than they had planned.

"I have high expectations," said Corsairs' head coach Brian Baptiste. "But then we had a few mishaps in the last couple of weeks."

Brian Cagle, slated to be a starting senior forward, will not be eligible for the first part of the season for academic reasons, and his replacement was expected to be Chris Lapriore. However, Lapriore suffered an injury away from the court when he broke his jaw after fainting at school, leaving the team without two of its better forwards for the time being, weakening its inside game from the get-go.

Sean Walsh, a 6-9 senior, will be the team's starting center and coach Baptiste expects he will be logging a lot of minutes.

Jason Wiggins, a 6-6 transfer from Roger Williams, will also find some time up front at forward, helping to bolster the Corsairs' presence in the paint.

"We have a power team," said Baptiste. "We had a strong team we tried to build around, but now we'll have to try a little bit of a different approach.

"We don't have the team makeup of an outside game, but we are going to try to play fast try to get up and down the court to get some easy baskets, and hopefully our inside game can still be good enough for 40 minutes until they get back."

Dartmouth graduate Tim Gaspar will be returning at guard, coming off a 2001-02 season where he led the Little East in assists, dishing out 196 in 29 games and averaging 6.8 a game.

"Timmy's a veteran who knows how to handle the pressure," said Baptiste. "He's a good player, good passer, good defender, leads the team very well, and that's a real strong attribute to the team."

With the departure of two-guard Ivan Britto, the Corsairs will be counting on Jeff Hambley, a 6-0 freshman from South Hadley, and Devon Marianno, a freshman and graduate of Dighton-Rehoboth, while Matt McAullife will be starting at forward in his second year and Mike Lapriore, Chris' twin brother, will also see significant playing time.

The Corsairs begin the season ranked atop the New England Coaches Poll among the Little East teams, but could get off to a rough start due to the rash of injuries.

In addition to Cagle and Chris Lapriore, senior forward Ryan Suprenant is nursing a hip injury that will limit his effectiveness, but is still expected to play this weekend when the Corsairs open the season with the Fourth Annual Hampton Inn Classic tonight and tomorrow at home.

Tip-off begins at 6 with Wheaton College and Bowdoin College, then at 8 UMass takes on Salve Regina in hopes of winning its fourth consecutive Hampton title.

There will be a consolation game tomorrow at 3, then at 5 the two winners square off to determine who takes home the trophy.

"We're banged up right now," said Baptiste. "We're probably going to take our lumps early on, but hopefully everybody gets back healthy and back on the playing court, and hopefully we'll finish strong."

This story appeared on Page C1 of The Standard-Times on November 22, 2002.