Former men's basketball players voice concerns

Junior Phil Barlow and senior Kyle Van Natta's recent retirement from the men's basketball team recently raises questions as to why two impact players, who started most of their collegiate games, would quit a sport they claim they love.

Barlow and Van Natta do not only love the sport of basketball _ they excel at it. Barlow was named NESCAC Rookie of the Year two seasons ago after averaging 11 points a game, shooting 43.8 percent from three-point range, while Van Natta started 20 of 25 games last season, scoring 4.6 points a game. So why would two successful players quit a team of which they were an integral component?

"It wasn't fun anymore," Barlow said. "We should have been a lot better than we were last year. We had a ton of talent on the team. We have had the last three rookies of the year and to be a game under .500 is a little frustrating and demoralizing as players."

Because Barlow broke his foot during the summer between his freshman and sophomore year, he was only able to play the first ten games of last season. During that time, he struggled through the pain of a broken bone that was not healing correctly, but still managed to score 9.9 points and 4.3 rebounds a contest.

"My Tufts experience wasn't great for basketball," Barlow said. "I played organized basketball in high school and loved it. I wouldn't say organized basketball is not for me, just basketball at Tufts didn't work out."

In the weeks leading up to this season's opening practices, Barlow decided to throw in the towel.

Although Van Natta has started most games since his sophomore year, he lost his passion for basketball while playing for Tufts. Part of the reason for this is that he was used to playing shooting guard or small forward, but was pushed to power forward, a position he rarely played in high school.

"Playing time also came into effect," Van Natta said. "It is a huge time commitment and the amount of fun I was getting out of it wasn't worth the time. I wanted to do other stuff with my senior year. I had pretty good reasons for not wanting to play. (Sheldon) accepted and understood my reasons."

Though Barlow and Van Natta both listed concerns about the team among the reasons they quit, Coach Bob Sheldon says that their unhappiness is part of the nature of the game.

"College basketball is not for everybody," men's basketball coach Bob Sheldon said. "It's a big commitment of two to three hours a day. It becomes not fun because there is so much involved other than just playing the games."

Even though Barlow and Van Natta started to dislike their college basketball experience, Sheldon believes it is not a team wide feeling.

"I think college basketball is fun for the guys who are playing," Sheldon said. "Some guys have fun working out, and being part of a team is fun. Some guys want to be intramural All-Stars."

The lack of fun within Tufts basketball was only part of the reason Barlow and Van Natta quit. They have been frustrated with constant changes in the team's strategy, caused by the fact that the team has had three different assistant coaches in three years, the last of whom attempted to put in a new offensive system similar to that of Princeton University. The change in offense was difficult to adjust to because the team only has two weeks of practice before its first game, Barlow said.

Sheldon disagreed with Barlow, arguing that the new offense was implemented to adjust to a young frontcourt and to add focus to the team's perimeter game.

"The new coach and new system had nothing to do with it," Sheldon said. "Part of (last season's) offense was based on Phil being there. We should have been smarter because we counted on him being there for the whole year, and he never made it a full year."

For Van Natta, the issue of the team's adjustments translating to losses combined with the fact that he was not having fun anymore was a difficult pill to swallow.

"You really try to win especially, at the Div. III level," Van Natta said. "If it's not fun, there are other things you can do with your time."

Though the decisions to quit by Van Natta and Barlow were personal, several other basketball players have become disillusioned by the team in recent years.

Junior Troy Palmer was recruited to come to Tufts and play basketball. In his freshman season, he played on the now extinct junior varsity team, where he dazzled crowds with thunderous dunks.

Palmer never realized his full potential, as he quit the squad midway through last season after appearing in only a handful of games.

"Basketball at Tufts is nothing more than glorified high school basketball," Palmer said. "Besides the politics, which can be expected, the attitude taken to the floor by the coaching staff wasn't genuine."

Palmer also expressed the same concerns Barlow and Van Natta had with last season's new offense.

"The head coach came into the season with a new attitude of run and gun, fun basketball," Palmer said. "But then totally abandoned it when he didn't quite understand what to do."

Palmer was passionate about his reasons for quitting, which may have been the reason he chose to do so in the middle of last season, instead of waiting until the off-season like the others players.

"The nature of Tufts basketball could've been expected. I just thought if I looked past it, the season would be worthwhile; it just didn't turn out that way," he said. "The coaches did contribute to the reason I quit, but in no way were they 100 percent responsible."

Other players were unhappy because they felt their roles were not well defined, Barlow said. The issue of playing time on the college level is a difficult one for many college coaches since most players who make up the roster were stars in high school.

"We have role meetings," Sheldon said. "We try to put team first. The coaches don't always agree with individuals, but we all have to be part of a team."

But former player Lee Neugebauer disagreed, saying that players sometimes do not know their role on the team.

"The last part of the season wasn't fun for me because my time was inconsistent," Neugebauer said. "Every game I prepared myself to play, but the games I didn't play was a let-down."

Because of the erratic nature of his playing time, Neugebauer quit the team this year.

"As you get older there are more thing that interest you," he said. "Basketball is too much time."

The departures of Barlow and Van Natta will not only affect the basketball team's performance this year, they will affect its sense of unity.

"They were players on the team everybody liked," junior Deyvehn East said. "It affects team chemistry; we all got along well. It's a little different not seeing familiar faces out there. But we got a good young group of guys that should have some impact this year."