BOSTON – Suffolk men's basketball will be led by a quartet of upperclassmen in 2021-22 as head coach Jeff Juron announced that graduate student Nate Hale, seniors Conor Creane and William Rowe and junior Aidan Sullivan will all captain the Rams this season.
They are the first group of four student-athletes to share the captain role since the men's basketball Class of 2020, Thomas Duffy, Jonathan Eng, George Grillakis and Cameron Powers split the responsivities over the 2019-20.
"Our captains have a lot of combined experience in our program," Juron said. "They know how we do things and will play an especially important role this year given our large group of newcomers."
Creane, Hale, Rowe and Sullivan have all earned the captain title for the first time in their careers at Suffolk and will guide a roster comprised of the largest recruiting classes in Juron's leadership to date with new true freshman from the Class of 2021 joining the Rams' ranks.
A year ago, the foursome guided Suffolk's squad through a COVID condensed campaign in which the blue-and-gold compiled a 6-2 record and the highest winning percentage (.750) against its Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) counterparts. Suffolk's scoring a year ago was the fourth-most potent in NCAA Division III with 95.5 points per game. The Rams also ranked in the top-10 in D3 in 3-point field goal percentage (fourth - 43.2), triples made per game (seventh – 12.2) and assist to turnover ratio (eighth – 1.60).
Individually, they each have had bursts of greatness.
Hale became the first player in the Rams' record books to pick up D3Hoops.com all-region honors with a spot on the East/Northeast second-team. He led all league players who took the hardwood last year in total points, 179, averaging 21.5 points per outing. The Nashua, New Hampshire, product sunk the sixth-most treys per game in the country with four triples per contest on the ninth-best conversion rate behind-the-arc, shooting at a 55.2 percentage from down. Hale enters his fifth year 51 points shy of the coveted 1,000-point mark.
Sullivan, a Scituate, Massachusetts, local is the youngest player to earn a captain role in the Juron era. He provided to be one of the most dynamic floor generals in the country in 2020-21 with the 5.4 assists per game and a 2.87 assist to turnover ratio, which sat 21st and 16th, respectively, in D3.
Rowe, who calls Reston, Virginia, home, has been a big man starter from the start of his Suffolk career, while Creane, a Milford, Connecticut native, became a great option in the back court last season with career-high numbers in nearly every category.
The group looks to build off that success as the Rams make the complete transition into the CCC for the first time in program history.
Suffolk's 25-game slate tips off at the Babson Invitational this weekend. The Rams will take on Coast Guard Saturday, Nov. 6 at 8 p.m., before battling the host Beavers the following day, Sunday, Nov. 7 at 6 p.m.