AU overcomes adversity

Aurora's men's basketball team began the season with a blueprint for success that looked like a real winner.

It actually started back when Larry Welton arrived as a freshman after his promising high school career had been derailed by illness. During his record-breaking college career, Welton has emerged as one of the top Division III players in the nation, and this season promised to be the culmination of all the success the program has experienced over the past four years.

As last season drew to a close, it looked like the Spartans had all of the pieces in place to make the 2007-08 campaign a special one. But plans have a way of getting changed, and it didn't take long for Aurora's to change out of necessity.

Junior point guard Dusty Magee, one of Aurora's floor leaders, scored 14 points and had 4 steals while playing 25 minutes in the season opener at Wartburg College. A nice start, but it would also turn out to be the end of Magee's season as he tore his ACL during the game, and has already undergone season ending surgery.

Magee came to Aurora from Knightstown, Ind., as an immensely talented but raw player whose intensity sometimes overruled his skills. With time and maturation, however, Magee developed into a major force at both ends of the floor, a player with game-changing ability who seemed poised to lead one of the nation's top teams.

"Dusty changes how the defense plays other people, and makes it hard to double down on Larry," Aurora coach James Lancaster said. "Though he might be the littlest guy on the floor Dusty is also the toughest player out there. You hate having to go through this, but on the other hand it's nice to have to coach again, and having to come up with different things."

With their starting point guard on the shelf for a year, the Spartans turned to Jarrett Starwood, a junior transfer from Waubonsee Community College who had played his high school ball at Waubonsie Valley. Starwood, an outstanding athlete, brought a different set of tools to the position.

"From a chemistry standpoint, the guys were used to one thing, and now they've had to get used to something else," Lancaster said. "The players are resilient, and they don't care who's out there, they just love playing the game."

The Spartans found success with Starwood running the floor, and though they lost their preseason top 15 ranking, they picked up big Northern Athletics Conference wins over Dominican and Wisconsin Lutheran, plus a hard-fought non-conference win against Millikin.

But just as the Spartans appeared to be back on course, albeit a slightly different one, Starwood too went down with an injury, taking with him not only his ball handling, but also a 14.4 scoring average. That left the team without a starting point guard heading into its clash with rival Benedictine.

"We need to have teamwork to hold us together, and that's always been true," sophomore guard Chad Trudo said.

It was a case of having to navigate through uncharted waters for a program whose success has been built on a foundation of standout backcourt leaders.

"This is my 14th year, and for 13 of those years we've had a first team all-conference point guard, and as a coach you love that," Lancaster said. "The point guard is a huge position for us both offensively and defensively. We've got to strap it up and make due with what we have."

Down two point guards, the Spartans turned to Lance Robinson. The 6-foot-3 sophomore is listed on the roster as a forward, but began the season as the backup center after the team learned that starter Mike Leonard would not be available until mid-December. Robinson then became the backup point guard after Magee went down.

"At the beginning of the year I was hoping to be the sixth man, and be able to come in and play any position," Robinson said. "I have to adjust to whatever role I'm playing in each game. I learned a lot last year about work ethic. I watched Chad and Doug (Lambert) come in early, so now I try to beat them to the gym and work as hard as they do."

Over the course of 40 tough minutes against Benedictine, Robinson showed consistent improvement and growing court awareness, culminating in one of the game's biggest plays, a cannon-shot pass to Shane Roland that resulted in a hoop that helped seal the win. It was Robinson's game-leading eighth assist.

"Lance knows our personnel, and understands what's happening on the basketball court and how to take advantage of it," Lancaster said. "He gets a feel for the game and helps get us into a nice rhythm."

In spite of the attrition to the roster, the Spartans are 5-2 thanks to veterans Welton, Trudo, and Lambert, as well as the improved play of Roland, KeJuan McGraw, Skyler Ormsbee, David Lozano and Brad Stark.

"We have confidence, and we're all on the same page," Lambert said. "We've had to fight through a lot of things, and everybody has been coming together all season."

Leonard should be back before Christmas and there's hope Starwood's return will come even sooner. Lancaster believes that all of the turmoil and unexpected personnel issues will ultimately work in his team's favor.

"I'm optimistic that we're going to get healthy and stronger, and this experience will make us a better team because it will help develop our depth," Lancaster said. "This is an opportunity for us to show what our system can do, it's been a formula for success."

With this being his final season, Welton is ready to do whatever it takes to get his team to where it originally planned to be.

"I put it all on me," Welton said. "I'm going to take our team as far as my body will let me. We've been snake-bitten so far, but we're going to be getting Mike and Jarrett back. We've got a lot of players who can give us a lift, and I know we're going to be really good."