Men's and Women's Basketball teams begin practice

October 16, 2012

Mick Durham (left) is set for his second year with the men's program, while Cody Burgess (right) is entering the third year as head coach for her alma mater.

Jamie Foland
474-6807

The Alaska men's and women's basketball teams officially opened preseason on Monday with the first day of practice.

The Nanooks are now allowed to practice 20 hours a week, as opposed to the two hours a week from the first day of school until now.

Mick Durham will enter his second year as head coach for the men's team, while Cody Burgess is about to begin her third year at the helm of the women's program.

“We're all excited to get out here,” Durham said. “We've been lifting, conditioning and have about a month to go. We have the next four weeks to try to come together and get better as a team and individually. It's a whole new team again, throwing a bunch of new guys together but we have three veteran guys leading us.”

“It's a great time of year,” Burgess said. “We really look forward to seeing all the new faces and how things come together. We're definitely ahead of the game this year with a lot of juniors, kids with experience and the returning class that wants to be here. Everybody's really excited and out on the court making some noise, so we're seeing a lot of positive things in the first day.”

For the men, three letter winners, all starters, are back from last year's 5-23 team. Senior guard Dominique Brinson, junior forward Stefan Tica and junior center Sergej Pucarrepresented 56-percent of the team's scoring in 2011-12 and accounted for 36-percent of the rebounds. The men welcome in 13 newcomers, including seven junior college or NCAA Division II or III transfers.

The women return six letter winners from last season's 6-22 club in senior guard Taylor Altenburg, senior forward Jacqueline Lovato, junior guards Marissa Atoruk and Emily Johnson and sophomore guards Benissa Bulaya and Kelly Logue. The squad returns 36-percent of last year's scoring and 35-percent of the rebounds from a year ago. This year, 12 newcomers join the program, including eight transfers.

Fans will get their first look at this year's men's and women's basketball squads on Thursday, Nov. 1 when the teams host the annual Blue versus Gold game at the Patty Center.

The men begin the regular season Nov. 9 and 10 in Anchorage with a pair of neutral-site matchups, while the women open up at home on Nov. 10 against Colorado School of Mines.