Young Pitt-Greensburg men's basketball team already seeing signs of growth

At 4:45 a.m., most people are still fast asleep and likely will be for another couple of hours before the alarm beckons them to start their day. Not Matthew Marinchak.

In the wee hours of many mornings during the basketball offseason, the Ligonier Valley grad was up and ready to train. Weightlifting. Swimming. Getting up shots. Then doing it all over again in the evening.

Athletes at the college level put in their fair share of work anyway, but for Marinchak and other members of the Pitt-Greensburg men’s basketball team, going above and beyond — even if it meant getting up before dawn — was required to prepare for the 2023-24 season.

After going 8-6 in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference last season, UPG graduated its three top scorers.

That meant huge voids to fill for the returning players, most of whom — 10, to be exact — were freshmen, sophomores or transfers who were new to the program.

Third-year coach Chris Klimchock was well aware of the task ahead.

“That was one thing going into the season we knew we would have to adjust to, finding points to come from somewhere,” he said. “We knew we would have to have guys step into new roles and take on bigger parts of the offense and have some new players in the program step up and be ready to play, and they have responded.”

Scoring wasn’t a problem for the Bobcats through their nonconference/exhibition schedule. They averaged nearly 80 points and entered conference play with five players averaging in double figures: fifth-year senior Micah Jones (15.3), sophomore Marinchak (14.8), freshman Trent Rozich (14.8), sophomore James Evans-Mcquay (10.5) and sophomore Jackson Byer (10.0).

Rozich and Byer came to UPG from Juniata and have fit seamlessly into the puzzle. Jones, the elder statesman of the group, said he has been impressed by how everyone in the lineup has contributed.

“Everybody is real coachable,” he said. “I think we mesh well together. We all get along together on the court, off the court. Being a captain, I’m kind of the leader on the court when it comes to making sure we’re all on the same page and everybody is level-headed.

“But all the guys make it so much easier because we’re all coachable and all pay attention.”

Marinchak said the returning players focused on taking a balanced approach to the offense and made it clear they didn’t need one guy to be Superman.

“I think pretty much all of us in the starting five or first six were like, if we can all score eight to 10 points a game, we should win a lot of ballgames,” said the 6-foot-1 guard. “It wasn’t like, ‘We need you to score 40 for us to win.’ It was like, if we play as a team, we should be all right.”

Despite more than making up for the lost points, the Bobcats went just 1-3 in their four nonconference games, plus an exhibition loss to Division I St. Francis (Pa.).

Part of that, Jones said, was the competition UPG faced. It opened with Grove City, always a tough out in the Presidents’ Athletic Conference. Next came Hiram, which led the North Coast Athletic Conference in scoring last season. After that was Mount Union, ranked No. 5 in the preseason D3hoops.com poll.

Throw in an exhibition against a Division I school, and there have been no nights off for the Bobcats.

Still, Klimchock and his players acknowledged the need to play better defense to complement the offense. Even in its Nov. 25 victory over Geneva, which was voted ahead of Grove City in the PAC preseason poll, UPG yielded 85 points.

“We went over film before the St. Francis game and saw our help defense just wasn’t there,” Marinchak said. “We weren’t all playing on one string. We went to play St. Francis, and we talked about how it looked a lot better.”

The result, though a loss, was kept respectable, 77-63 in favor of the Red Flash.

“We found out that we have a resilient group,” Jones said. “We can compete against anybody at any level if we’re ready to go. … I think that game will give our guys confidence going forward.

“I knew with it being such a new group that building team chemistry would take some time, but I am happy with the progress we have made. I think if we continue to do that, we’re only going to get better as the season goes on.”

The Bobcats will have to make those strides in conference play. The AMCC schedule already has started, so the players still face some on-the-job training.

Marinchak, for one, isn’t worried. He, like Jones, used the game against St. Francis as a yard stick to measure the team’s progress.

“I think we’re in a good place. … I think it has prepared us for conference play,” said Marinchak, who led Pitt-Greensburg against St. Francis with 18 points, including making 5 of 11 3-point attempts.

“Because of the competition level, from D-I and playing (Mount Union) … I think we have enough games under our belt where we’re like, ‘We know what we need to do to win.’ ”

Jones said the Bobcats have set a goal of making the AMCC playoffs. After that, he said, anything can happen, so he won’t rule out the possibility of winning the whole thing.

The progress the young team has shown in just a few games is a source of optimism for the team’s most veteran player.

“Confidence is one thing that, if you have that, everything else comes easier,” he said. “So all the new guys that we have, they have it. Additionally, energy. I’m a big energy guy. I like playing fast. I like running up the floor. And we have guys who bring energy and dive on the floor.

“Energy and confidence, when you have those two things and toughness, everything else comes easier.”