Waiting game for Wesmen

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/10/2020 (1857 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As a student-athlete, Donald Stewart is no stranger to tests. 

But not even an overpriced textbook could prepare the University of Winnipeg Wesmen men’s basketball team member for his biggest test yet — patience. 

Last season, the 6-7 forward was fresh out of Vincent Massey Collegiate and was a redshirt freshman who needed to bulk up and further develop his game. While the 19-year-old realizes it was beneficial for him, he admits it was tough having to watch the games in street clothes. But he knew he’d be out on the court playing for the school the following season.

Yeah, about that. 

“I was a little disappointed when it first looked like we weren’t going to have a season. I was like ‘Ah man, I just redshirted a year and now it seems like I’m not going to play a whole other year.’ I was a little disappointed and talking with friends and parents and stuff about it,” Stewart said Monday afternoon prior to hitting the weights at the Duckworth Centre.

“After a while, I sort of just adopted the mindset that it’s out of my control. There’s nothing I can do to change whether we can play or not, so let me just try to control what I can control. In the grand scheme of things, I now have two years to prepare for when I can hopefully play my first game in 2021 at some point.”

With the Canada West conference pulling the plug on the basketball season, as well as volleyball, hockey and wrestling, Stewart is one of many athletes forced to settle for nothing but training. The only difference for him is he’s already had a taste of what it’s like to practise and not have any game action. However, the practice life looks a lot different for Stewart this time around.

Unlike the Wesmen women’s basketball team that has nearly their entire roster in town for training sessions, the men’s side, led by head coach Mike Raimbault, only has five players. That’s because a large chunk of the roster lives out of province, such as Toronto guards Dwight Dixon and Narcisse Ambanza and forward Spas Nikolov from Bulgaria.

Despite being short-handed, Raimbault and his group of five — forwards Stewart, Shawn Maranan and Josh Gandier and guards Emmanuel Thomas and Don Dayrit — are at the Duckworth Centre five days a week either on the court or in the weight room.

“For me, it’s nice to see these five guys every day, to see their faces and talk about what they’re dealing with. I mean, of all the craziness of the pandemic, we’re all dealing with the same thing, but how it’s impacting all of us is very individual,” said Raimbault, who took the Wesmen job in 2010.

“Everybody is dealing with different challenges with that. To get together as a group regularly, for me, has been extremely nice for my routine, getting to spend time with these guys again.”

As a basketball coach, the challenge has been figuring out what to do on the court. On Sept. 25, Basketball Manitoba’s return-to-play plan reached phase 2.5, which allowed players to pass the ball and rebound for one another in drills. Later that day, as the Wesmen were leaving the facility after their first practice with shared equipment, health officials raised Winnipeg’s restriction level to orange. Basketball was knocked back down to phase 2.0, and hasn’t changed since. Phase 2.0 allows a maximum of two players at a basket and each participant can only handle their own ball.  

“I think it’s like anything else. There are always positives that can be taken away from challenges and adversity,” Raimbault said.

“Our little group of five plus me are getting to spend a lot of time together on a regular basis. Obviously, (we’d like) a little additional time in the weight room to get stronger and individual skill development to really concentrate on each guys’ game. I don’t think we take it for granted being able to be back here. It was such a long time where we weren’t able to access our facilities. We weren’t able to be on the court or in the weight room. Things are very fluid and can change day to day. Just got to enjoy our time together each day and make the most of it.”

For now, the group will wait until things settle down, which will then allow the non-Manitobans to return. When that happens, the Wesmen could discuss playing exhibition games with the University of Manitoba Bisons and the Brandon University Bobcats. That’s likely a long time away, but luckily for Stewart, he’s no stranger to playing the waiting game.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31