It took Randy Davis some time to adjust to university basketball, but once he did he fit right in with the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns.
Davis, a Notre Dame grad, who played three seasons with the RDC Kings, got off to a slow start, but by the end of the season was averaging 10.7 points per game.
“I wasn’t shooting the ball that well early on, plus we had a bunch of new guys and the chemistry wasn’t there so I wasn’t getting a lot of touches,” explained Davis. “But once we got to know each other and there was a flow to our game I started to shoot better.”
Plus it took some time for Davis to get used to a higher level of play.
“That also had something to do with my slow start,” he said. “It took time to adjust. There’s certainly a difference between college and university, I found that once I was in the key I just couldn’t finish as easily. I had to learn to kick it out and stay away from the big guys.”
Davis was back in town for the weekend, playing with Red Deer Carstar in the provincial men’s basketball championships at Lindsay Thurber.
Carstar took second place, losing 78-74 to Red Deer Orangemen in the Division I final Sunday afternoon.
Davis has one year remaining with the Pronghorns, which were his second choice when he decided to leave RDC.
“I was about to make a decision to attend the University of Saskatchewan when Craig (RDC coach Craig Behan) called me and said they had a new coach in Lethbridge,” he explained. “I knew him and so I went to their ID camp and enjoyed it and it went from there.”
The Pronghorns were interested in Davis despite the fact he had only two years of eligibility remaining.
“They were looking for someone who could step right in and score,” he said. ‘It worked out perfectly for me. I had a blast. It was a big change, but I enjoyed the competition and got a lot of minutes.”
Davis played close to 30 minutes a game and led the Pronghorns in three-point shooting. He also helped them to a 10-10 conference record, which earned them a playoff berth for the first time in close to a decade.
“We didn’t do as well (in the playoffs) as we would have liked, but we played Calgary and they had one of the better teams in the country,” said Davis, who was able to transfer the majority of his courses from RDC to the U of L.
“There were a couple I couldn’t transfer so I’ll have to take some summer courses to get my degree (in marketing).”
Davis led Carstar in the final with 19 points while Mark Salkeld had 18, Adam Shaw 14 and Jamie Brown 11.
Chris Biegler and Shawn Kennedy had 17 points each, Travis Struss 16 and Ray Teskey 12 for the Orangemen, who were made up of members of several teams out of the Central Alberta Senior Men’s Basketball Association along with a couple of out-of-town recruits.
The loss was the first of the season for Carstar, who won the CASMBA Division I title.
Meanwhile in Division III Red Deer’s Wells Furniture downed And What Not 71-61 in the final.
James Bible had 17 points and Dave McComish 12 for Wells.
drode@www.reddeeradvocate.com