NPH CIS Team Previews: UQAM Citadins

The Citadins will back down from no one this season, because their head coach doesn’t.

UQAM CITADINS

Head coach: Nate Philippe

Record in 2014: 4-12 (Fifth in RSEQ)

Playoffs: No playoffs

Points scored per game: 66.2

Points allowed per game: 74.6

Here’s how the 2014-2015 season unfolded for the Citadins.

Key players: Kewyn Blain, Davidson Joseph, Greishe Clerjuste

Key losses: Too many to name, but the main one is Alexandre Bernard

Schedule breakdown:

Familiarity breeds contempt, is that what they say? Life in Quebec is such that the five teams in the RSEQ play the fewest games in the CIS and that, because each teams plays every other one four times each, the games at the end of the season are testy affairs.

“It’s a matter of who wants it more and who wants to perform,” UQAM head coach Nate Philippe says, “when it counts.” If it counts for anything, the Citadins are in good hands with their leader, who has embraced life in the league as a first year Head Coach.

Key games: at Concordia Stingers, November 7 and January 16

                     at Laval Rouge et Or, November 27 and January 28

CBG’s take:

Philippe wastes no time in pleasantries. “My goal is to be the best defensive team in the country,” he tells NPH, “and the best rebounding team in the country.” 

Put simply, the man wants to compete at the national level and believes he has the roster to do so.

Kewyn Blain, last seen at the point guard spot for the Carleton Ravens, will be the team’s leader.

“He has the chance to be one of the top point guards in the country,” his head coach says of the young man.

This season, Philippe replaces an UQAM legend in former head coach Olga Hrycak. “I have a great deal of respect for (her) and her career accomplishments definitely speak for themselves,” he says. “But I don’t see it as following in her footsteps so much as I’m starting my own era.”

If Philippe has his way, that era will include the playoffs in his very first season.