Sante Fe Men’s Basketball Coach Chris Mowry Talks Upcoming Season

The Sante Fe Saints’ men’s basketball season is on the horizon for head coach Chris Mowry and his 2023-2024 squad.

Coming off a 16-12 season last year, Mowry looks ahead to his 21st year as the head coach, hoping to build on his already historic resume. Mowry is not only the longest tenured mens basketball coach in Saints history, but his 374-219 record also cements him as the most winningest at the school.

With the season starting soon, Mowry sat down to talk about the team.

New Faces

As expected for a Junior College, Sante Fe constantly has a shifting roster. Every year players transfer, leave and graduate at a high rate. This year’s roster, Mowry says, will be filled with new faces.

With such an influx of new players, Mowry knows chemistry is something that will be found with time.

Constant roster change is just another staple in the JUCO world, and, year after year, teams face the unique challenge of having to find chemistry quickly if they want to find success.

In addition this struggle, the Saints have been bugged with injury as of late.

Building A Roster

After losing a large amount of impact players, Mowry is still tasked with building a competitive roster. Though this is often the norm for JUCO head coaches, Mowry believes it is now a reality for Division 1 coaches as well.

Depth

With opening day coming, he has a tough decision ahead. Having too many good players is not a bad problem to have, yet making the starting five will be difficult.

Finding roles is huge in such a deep team, and Mowry believes a recent scrimmage helped with that.

Furthermore, he believes the depth and skill of this team will take them far.

Opening Day

The season kicks off for the Saints Thursday, as they take on Prep school Mont Sports Academy at home. Mowry recognizes the challenge at hand.

The Saints will take the floor Thursday in the Santa Fe gym, with tipoff set for 7 p.m.