By Landon Troka
With the men’s basketball season coming to a close, so do the careers of five Cougar seniors. This includes All-American and leading score Troy Leaf and second-team All-PacWest point guard Robert Sandoval. The question looms: who’s going to take over the 30+ points a game the duo was responsible for.
It is likely that the Cougars will continue to employ a deep rotation, but I think it is reasonable to say that points will be spread more evenly across players who play 25 or more minutes per game. Still, players need to step into a heightened role to score. I think one of the players who could take a heightened role to score will be current-Freshman Petar Kutlesic, who was named the PacWest Freshman of the Year. The 6 foot eight inch Serbian led the Cougars in rebounding this year. He posses both an inside and outside game and has shown an ability to score from anywhere on the floor. Additionally, current-junior Bruce English could be posed for increased minutes and scoring. He showed flashes of being able to heat up and score. Without Leaf to handle that, English will have more opportunities to put up points for the Cougars.
Regardless of where the points come from, it’s clear that Coach Justin Leslie plans on continuing to score 80 or more points per game.