IT was always going to be a challenging 2016 for the Print Sync South West Slammers with half of the grand final team of last year moving on, but new coach Michael Van Lit hopes the time put into some exciting youngsters will hold the club in good stead moving forward.

Not only did the Slammers lose playing-coach Ty Harrelson coming into the 2016 SBL season, but also Brian Voelkel, Jordan Hickert, Aaron Edwards, Jordan Sears, Patrick Phillips, Brendon Canzirri and Cameron Bell from the team that played in the grand final against the Joondalup Wolves.

That left coach Michael Van Lit with quite the job to do to try and put together a competitive outfit, but retaining dynamic import guard Tre Nichols was a great positive and he hasn’t let him down with another season of 28.9 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.1 assists a game.

Royal Crouch has also proven a strong second import before injuring a hamstring delivering 22.5 points and 10.9 boards in his 17 games.

Wade Hitchcock and Trent Worthington continue to provide strong leadership as does Clive Weeden as he continues to work his way back to top form and fitness off his knee injury.

But it is the young players coming through for the Slammers that gives plenty of optimism for the future despite the Slammers falling out of playoff contention with six wins for the season and three straight losses.

The development from earning playing time for the likes of Travis Durnin, Sharieff Nepe and Josh England will prove invaluable and Teny Puot is getting better each game he plays as point guard.

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Van Lit has done his best to stay positive but it has proven one of those years where the Slammers needed everything to go right, and the opposite has happened with Nichols, Worthington, Crouch and Weeden all missing time injured at one point or another.

And just as the Slammers got Worthington and Weeden back together, Crouch injured a hamstring and then Nichols broke a nose that required surgery keeping him out of losses to the Cockburn Cougars and Kalamunda Eastern Suns last weekend.

"We had a really tough run in the middle of the season losing Trent for a couple of weeks, Royal got a hamstring injury and then Tre breaks his nose. We just have to keep fighting and see what happens at the end of the day," Van Lit said.

"Tre had surgery last Tuesday should be right to play again this week now. He's getting a mask sorted out. And Royal's another two weeks away with his hamstring."

While the wins haven’t come the Slammers way that they would have hoped, Van Lit is happy with the development of the young players and the way the likes of Nepe, Durnin and Puot continue to get better the longer the season goes and with the more opportunities they receive.

He has no doubt they can form the cornerstone of successful South West teams going forward particularly by having developed under strong leaders like Worthington, Weeden, Hitchcock and Corey Easley.

"I'm happy with how the guys have kept fighting this season. I think we lost six guys from the grand final team effectively so there was a lot of chemistry to build this year and to get the younger guys playing at the level they need to play at," he said.

"We've been focusing on that a lot in the second half of the year getting the young guys to play, and just letting them go out and play and see what they can give. They all give 110 per cent every single week.

"The leadership guys like Trent, Clive, Wade and Corey have been really useful for those younger guys even to help them learn about the other players in the league and what they are like to play against. They can also give the younger guys some feedback and that's been good to see."

It was an unenviable task for Van Lit to take over as coach from Harrelson who did a remarkable job taking a Slammers team that was non-competitive before his arrival to being a championship contender by the time he left.

Not only did he need to be replaced as coach, but his leadership and abilities on the court were irreplaceable so Van Lit never thought it was an easy job he was walking into.

That was further hammered home with the amount of players who left following the grand final either through retirement, moving away or joining rival SBL clubs.

Despite the hard times, Van Lit has kept his head and remained positive with the group and he would like to see the hard work made in developing the group this year through with at least another season at the helm.

"It has been interesting being the head coach, but what we really miss from Ty is that bit of on-court leadership in the crunch time. Sometimes we don’t execute down the stretch as well as we did last year, but we are still a young team and learning," Van Lit said.

"I'd really like to at least be here for another year and see where we can progress after the young group we've developed this year. We'd like to try and build on what we started at the start of the year.

"We didn’t have the best start losing Jordan Hickert and Patty Phillips but we have to build a culture now where the young kids want to come through and play at, and create a winning environment.

"I feel like we are building that especially with the likes of Sharieff, Josh England and Travis Durnin. We've also got other young kids in the under-18s who will be pushing for a spot next year and we'll be alright going forward in the future."

Article by Chris Pike
Photo by Mick Cronin