New Keyano Huskies men’s head basketball coach Mike Connolly is going to have to do a bit of a Mike Holmes impression and build a ACAC competitor from the ground up.

Connolly, who recently held the same position with the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns, sounds like he will enjoy rolling up his sleeves between now and the 2010-11 season, when the Huskies play their first league games in ACAC.

“I think it’s an exciting opportunity to start something from scratch and that’s always a challenge, and I like challenges,” said Connolly, who moved into his new office digs at the Syncrude Sport & Wellness Centre earlier this week.

“There were some family decisions about where we want to live, and this looks like a place we could live. I played basketball at Thunder Bay, and the area’s the same.”

Connolly inherits the men’s basketball head coaching role from previous head coach Moe Farhat, who took the team from an intramural program to last year’s ACAL champions. When the college was accepted into the ACAC for play beginning in 2010-11, the school set out to find a full-time coach and program co-ordinator for the SSWC. They found both in Connolly, and didn’t have to look far.

Connolly said Huskies Athletic Director Wade Kolmel got hold of him about the position.

“He did a lot of good work to try to get us to come up,” Connolly said.

Connolly has experience at the University of Victoria and the University of Lethbridge in a head coaching role. He was an assistant at the University of Toronto before that, and prior to that stint was the head coach of the Medicine Hat Rattlers of the ACAC.

Recruiting-wise, Connolly is already in mid-summer form.

“Moe and I talked together and Moe will continue to help out with the program,” Connolly said. “We’re in a great situation with him to be able to have some consistency and to have community involvement, but we’re going to honour some of the commitments that Moe has coming and we’re going to get hold of everybody and talk about that but we’re also looking at bringing in other kids.

“We’ve got a couple of commitments already that we hope to be announcing next week for sure. There’s a couple of kids that are CIS-calibre athletes that are coming up.”

Connolly hopes to bring about five players of his own with Farhat’s recruits, the combination of which might be expected to steamroll most of ACAL next season.

“Some of the kids we’re looking at have the ability to play at university,” Connolly said.

“They can come here and make the commitment for two or three years, and go to university and still have three to four years of eligibility left. They can stretch their school out and do well at both.”

On the court, Connolly stresses defence and conditioning. Really, really stresses it.

“We’re going to be a defensive-orientated team,” Connolly said. “We’re going to run off our defence, we’re going to fast break and go, but everything’s going to come from our defence and we’re going to rebound.

“We’re going to be a tough team. We’re going to represent the north and be a tough, physical, mental team. Kids are going to be prepared and ready to go and play.

“Offence wins games, but defence wins championships and that’s what we’re going to be about here — winning championships.”

Connolly will try to schedule some games this fall and winter against some ACAC opponents in addition to the team’s ACAL season commitments.

The Huskies’ regular season starts Jan. 29 and 30, 2010 against St. Mary’s, and their only other home weekend this upcoming season is Feb. 19-20 against Ambrose College.

COREY ATKINSON

Today staff