On June 3, former University of South Carolina-Aiken head coach Vince Alexander was named the new head coach of the Saint Leo Lion’s men’s basketball team. With 287 career wins (as of Nov. 16), Alexander brings a winning mentality, and a depth of experience to the Lions.
Following 10 successful years at USC-Aiken, the question was: why Saint Leo? For Coach Alexander, there were many reasons.
“First and foremost my wife has family in this area, and that was very attractive to us; to be able to get close to her family. She’s followed me around for the last 18 years of doing this and we’ve always been in places where she’s far away from her family, and there was an opportunity to get there,” said Alexander. “Second of all, it’s a great institution, academically. Not only that, but its financial stability throughout hard economic times meant a lot to me. It says something about a university that’s still thriving when most universities are having cuts and cut backs, and having to cut programs. It said a lot that Saint Leo was still thriving. Finally, the core values here, it lined up with what I want to accomplish in my life. Excellence, community, integrity, responsible stewardship, all of those things. They line up with what I want to be and what I want to do.”
Coming to the Lions presents not only a fresh opportunity, but new challenges for Coach Alexander. In the pre-season rankings, the University was placed 8th of 9 Sunshine State Conference teams. That seemed low for the coach.
“I think we’re a little underappreciated,” said Alexander. “I understand that it’s a new coach, with not many players returning from last year. So I understand, I think it’s a little unfair, but it is what it is. We are where we are, all that really matters is when the end of the season comes, where are we then?”
Looking at the team, Alexander talked about what he feels are the strengths and weaknesses of the Lions.
“Right now, I think our guards are very strong. We have some very talented guards. They’re creative, they can shoot. They’re a really strong team and they defend really well,” said Alexander.
“Our weakest point right now is our inside play. We really don’t have a go-to person inside, and we’re not very physical in there yet,” said Alexander. “All that doesn’t really matter if we do what we’re supposed to do and what we’re capable of doing.”
“Of course, every team has strengths and every team has weaknesses, and we have some weaknesses. We have to let our strengths outweigh our weaknesses, and that’s what we’re gonna strive to do. We’re gonna try to be better than what we need to be, to offset our weaknesses.”
With his 287 wins, Coach Alexander sits 54th on the all-time division two list. Looking back at his time at USC-Aiken, where most of his victories came, he aims to continue his success.
“We were extremely blessed to be able to accomplish what we accomplished there, and now we have to do that here,” said Alexander.
