The OUA basketball season is well underway. With the Gaels gearing up for a busy few weeks before the winter break, The Journal sat down with the Head Coaches of the Queen’s Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams, Stephan Barrie and Claire Meadows, to get their thoughts on their teams’ performances so far.
Men’s Basketball
The Men’s Basketball team is 5-1 so far this season, with wins against Guelph, Western, and Algoma. Their only loss came on Nov. 1 against Windsor, 96-104
With the 2024-25 season bringing on significant changes for the Gaels, fresh faces and new tactics require adjustments across the board. Head Coach Stephan Barrie views this as an opportunity, with first-year talent and returning players stepping up to fill big roles.
“I would say it’s probably the best recruiting class in the country, and we felt confident about that,” Barrie said. “But obviously, with first years and the adjustment to this level, you don’t know exactly how it’s going to go. They’ve met the challenge in of adjusting to this level, and some of the guys are getting opportunities they haven’t had in the past.”
One standout among the first years is Kingston local Ollie Engen, Kin ’28, who has quickly found his footing and made his mark on the scoresheet. For Coach Barrie, Engen’s seamless transition to U SPORTS was no surprise, given his prior experience training with the team before his official debut in Tricolour.
“I mean, he’s [Engen] the best recruit Queen’s has ever had. You know, he’s just a top-level player and we knew that when he was coming in. When we were losing players at the level of Cole Syllas, for example, having seen Ollie play a lot in high school, and then he would also play with us in the summertime as a local kid, our feeling was he was going to be at that level right away,” Barrie said.
Despite their hot start, Coach Barrie is making sure his team stays focused and is going into each game with the same mentality, hoping to make all the necessary adjustments to their new system come playoff time.
“We’re playing an entirely different system of basketball than we’ve played in the past. Including the coaches, we’re all getting used to playing this way because it’s very different. It’s drastically different in of how we were playing, mostly defensively. We’re not good at it yet, and I’m not saying the players aren’t good. It’s still finding its way. We’re making mistakes and learning from them week to week,” he said.
The Gaels’ next game is on Nov. 22 at the ARC, where they’ll take on the University of Toronto Varsity Blues as they look to improve to 6-1 on the season.
Women’s Basketball
After a shaky start to the season, the Women’s Basketball team seems to have found their rhythm and are currently riding a four-game win streak with recent victories over Western and Laurier.
Head Coach Claire Meadows expressed pride in how her team has navigated challenges so early in the season.
“I think I’m most impressed with our ability to handle adversity so far this season,” Meadows said. “We’ve had a lot of different things come our way. We haven’t played with our full roster yet, and so we’ve had a lot thrown at us and we’ve just remained disciplined and dedicated to what we want to accomplish, and more importantly, just who we want to be.”
Despite losing a significant portion of last year’s starting lineup, Coach Meadows isn’t surprised by the team’s ability to hold their ground.
“We always knew at the end of last season we were turning over a good chunk of our roster and starters, so we’ve been preparing for this. We knew that the beginning of the year was going to come with a few bumps along the way because new people were playing new roles and a lot playing more minutes than they’ve ever had at this level. But I think we’ve quickly been able to identify as a new group and a new team, and I’ve been impressed with how quickly we’ve been able to do that,” she said.
Looking ahead, the Women’s team is set to play divisional powerhouses Ottawa and Carleton twice just before playoffs start. While those games may loom large, Coach Meadows is making sure her team focuses on maintaining a game-by-game approach and prioritizes continuous improvement.
“We’re not focusing on wins right now; we’re focusing on trying to get better. That’s very much our philosophy, ‘be the best that you can be today, and then tomorrow, let’s be one percent better,’ and so that’s very much our focus right now but I think as a whole, we want to be playing our best basketball at the end of February,” Coach Meadows shared.
The Women’s team will aim to extend their win streak to five games on Nov. 22 at the ARC where they’ll also be taking on the Varsity Blues.
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