Marcial preps for return of CSM men’s basketball

All that work will finally come to fruition as the CSM men’s basketball team will open the 2019-20 season at the City College of San Francisco tournament the weekend of Nov. 1.

All the while, Marcial was dealing with a move from NAIA power Bellevue University-Nebraska to the Bay Area.

“Last year, I didn’t even feel like a basketball coach,” said Marical, a Fresno native who has had assistant coaching stops at Fresno City College, Sacramento State and Bellevue University. “Trying to talk to parents and recruits about a team that hasn’t been around for 35 years is hard.

“It wasn’t just basketball. I was tying to figure out where I was going to live. There was sticker shock.”

But with the help of assistant coach Mike Barton, who played and started his coaching career at Cañada College under Mike Legarza before spending the last five seasons at Serra, and his second assistant Nick Hilton, the Bulldogs coaching staff has assembled a 14-man roster for the 2019-20 season.

The Bulldogs have a nice cross-section of players from around the Bay Area, many who come from successful high school programs. Redshirt-freshman guard Taran Singh and redshirt-sophomore guard Jorden Gilmete hail from North Coast Section power James Logan-Union City. Marcial smartly picked up a number of West Catholic Athletic League alums, including 6-2 forward Denzell McCollum and redshirt guard Dillon Macaraig (sophomore and freshman, Serra), point guard Oscar Pedzara and 6-3 forward Desai Lopez (freshman, St. Francis) and 6-2 forward Bobby Arenas (freshman, Riordan). Daniel Benjamin, a redshirt-freshman point guard, represents the Peninsula Athletic League from Jefferson.

“I just tried to recruit from programs that have a history of success on the court,” Marcial said.

He credits Barton’s knowledge of the Peninsula, in particular, and the Bay Area, in general, for helping Marcial identify schools from which to recruit.

“Once I got settled in, my first priority was to get a local coach to help me,” Marcial said. “Mike Barton, he was the first guy I asked to be on my staff. He and I spent a lot of time one on one (figuring all this out). He got me really knowledgeable about the Peninsula and the area. He helped me out tremendously.

“Without him, I don’t think we would be able to put together as competitive a roster as we have.”

But Barton wasn’t the only coach who offered their services to help in whatever way possible. Marcial said every single head coach of all the CSM teams have all helped Marcial in his transition to head coach of a new program.

“I didn’t even know where CSM existed … until I walked on campus,” Marcial said. “But the coaches here on campus … they were all very helpful. There wasn’t a head coach here on campus who didn’t want to help me. … I couldn’t ask for a more supportive staff.”

There was some value, however, to a 2018-19 season that wasn’t played. Marcial said he did bring in a handful of players for the “team” last year, all of whom redshirted. They came with the understanding they would not be playing and would be starting their eligibility clock.

But that core — Singh, Benjamin, Macaraig, Gilmete and David Peterson (Fremont-Oakland) — has now spent a year and a half working with Marcial, learning his system and learning about his tendencies as a coach. That quintet can now mentor the new members of the team and counsel on what the expectations are under Marcial.

“That was the best advice I had,” Marcial said of starting a program for players without a schedule. “We brought in [five] guys in 2018-19 and redshirted them. We were lucky we had [five] guys who believed in what we were doing.”