The Otterbein men’s basketball team is off to a 6-11 start in their premiere season under new head coach, Andy Winters. Other members of the brand new coaching staff include Matt Winters, the brother of Andy Winters, Will Hannah and AJ Dixon.
“It’s great to have people that you know you can trust and are loyal and are working as hard as they can,” said Winters. “We have AJ Dixon on staff, we have Will Hannah on staff, two guys I’ve coached. Ultimately, your program is only as good as the assistant coaches that you have.”
With having his own brother and two former players that he coached on the staff, Winters made it clear he was confident in his assistant coaches.
The team this year has showed an increased level of competitiveness and aggression as a result of Winters new coaching style, according to Cam Edmondson, a junior journalism and media communications major on the basketball team.
“I think this team is more competitive, I would say,” said Edmondson. “Obviously, so far the results haven’t ended up as we want them to…I feel in the games that we have lost we’ve had a chance to win them down the stretch, we just didn’t execute.”
Otterbein has suffered numerous loses by single digits, including losses to Denison by one, Capital by six and Baldwin Wallace by eight.
Winters and his staff are experimenting with numerous ways to aid the team in winning games.
“We’re changing our lineup’s a bit,” said Edmondson. “We’re just trying to find rotations where guys that play well together get in there at the same time, so we can execute both offensively and defensively.”
Members of the team are happy with their assistant coaching staff and what they bring to the team, according to junior psychology major and member of the basketball team, Mo Beavers.
“Will Hannah is someone we can go to with our problems that we don’t want to take to the head coach [Winters] because he’s close to our age,” said Beavers.
Though Otterbein hasn’t won many games this season, coach Winters and members of the team are confident in their staff and the future of the team.
Edited and Fact-checked by Ian Gillen
