Coming off last year’s overall record of 24-9 and taking third place at nationals after losing to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, the Alabama men’s wheelchair basketball team prepares to start the upcoming season.

After losing four players, including one captain, and gaining six freshmen players, the team is full of fresh faces. The team also has a new head coach, Ford Buttram. He was the assistant coach of the men’s team for five years before being named head coach.

“The pressure is not on me to win,” he said. “The pressure is on me to compete.”

With a majority of the team being new, Buttram will have the opportunity to grow as a head coach while the new players learn how to mesh as a team.

“That’s one of the things I really hope to see this year – for him to feel like he was successful and has something to build on from here because he does deserve it,” Justin Obermyer, one of the two team captains, said.

As the season kicks into full swing Tuesday with practices five days a week, the first game is right around the corner on Oct. 18 at the Lakeshore Foundation in Birmingham. Buttram said he is happy this year’s schedule will have more college games, even though it’s different from previous seasons.

Both team captains, Obermyer and Jannik Blair, believe while the team still has some work to do, it will be ready to play come 
game time.

“Our players are pretty raw – some of them are foul prone and some of them are still getting used to the speed that they’ll face,” Blair said. “But the beauty of our season is that it’s so long and we’ll play so many games that by the time nationals roll around in early March, we’ll be ready.”

Buttram said he believes the biggest tournament will be the one during the last weekend of February in Tuscaloosa that hosts many other collegiate teams.

“That’ll be the measuring point as to what we really need to change right before we go to nationals four days later,” he said.

Losing a couple players to injury and being academically ineligible, the team was lacking on the bench when nationals rolled around last year. After winning a national championship in 2013, getting third was disappointing to Blair, but it only fueled his fire to return this year.

“I think we still performed pretty well,” Blair said. “But it just leaves us hungry for this year to get the result we want.”