Featured photo by Jordan France
By Connor Ballou
The 2025-2026 Men’s basketball team will only feature 4 upperclassmen, with one being Shawn Jones, going into this senior season for the Pacers.
The team aims to improve on a 5-20 overall record and a 3-11 conference record from last year. The season opener will be Saturday, Nov. 8, at home against Bridgewater College.
“I’m very excited, last season this one is for all the marbles,” said Jones. “I’m also looking forward to the season starting because we had a slow start last year and should have won some games we lost.”
In the 2024-2025 season, Jones started in 19 out of 25 games, averaging 22 minutes a game. Jones has some big goals ahead of his senior season.
“Some goals I have for this season is to lead by example to the younger guys, said Jones. “Being the only senior on the team, a lot of the underclassmen look up to me and my work ethic.”
“Another goal I have is to break the record for blocked shots.”
Shawn currently has 50 blocked shots in his career and needs 17 more to break the William Peace all-time blocks record.
Another one of the key returners to this year’s team will be Columbia, SC native Ryan Lominack. Lominack captured the USA South Rookie of the Year award his freshman year and is looking for a big junior year.
Lominack has confidence in this year’s team.
“We have a solid group of guys who have good playing experience,” said Lominack. “We also have a handful of guys who have been in the program 2 plus years, and they can help direct the young guys to success…we have fun as a team and enjoy playing together, which makes everything easier,” said Lominack.
Claude Shields will be going into his 14th season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach.
Coach Shields raved about this team’s hard work and work ethic.
“We have a great group of returners – although they are mostly still young as sophomores, they went through the fire last year and continued to work hard and improve,” said Shields. “They have embraced the process thus far in the season and consistently learned from failure to help reach our potential.”
Coach Shields highlighted a few areas of emphasis to improve on during practice ahead of the season.
“Our focus in the preseason is defining roles and integrating a few freshmen that we think can be big contributors to us this year,” said Shields. “We need to continue to peel back layers of our offense and defense to take the next step in our journey.”
Additionally, an exhibition game will provide the team with some great preseason experience.
“We have an early scrimmage this year, which will be a big help in exposing the things that we need to work on before our opener on Nov 8th,” said Shields.
Point guard Elijah Green, a sophomore from Charlotte, NC, started 13 out of 16 games last year. He averaged 10 points per game in 27 minutes per game. He spoke on how he views his role as the point guard and one of the leaders of this team.
“As a point guard and leader, I see myself as a floor general, especially by setting the tone with my energy and communication, and making sure everyone’s flowing,” said Green. “My role consists of me staying composed throughout the game, encouraging my teammates, and keeping everyone locked in together on winning.”
This team is a close-knit group with a good blend of upperclassmen and lowerclassmen. Green highlights the team chemistry in the offseason.
“Our chemistry has really grown this offseason,” said Green. “From working out together outside of practices to supporting other athletics on campus to going out to eat as a team, we’ve really improved our connection as a team this offseason, which I can see translating to the court this year.”