Chemistry is more than just a subject when it comes to basketball.

Sure, recruiting a group of talented players to play is the first step to becoming successful in any sport, but pure talent alone is not enough to win.

To be effective as a team, the members must be able to combine their talents and work together comfortably to achieve a common goal.

No one knows this better than Michael Giorlando, head basketball coach and director for intercollegiate athletics and wellness.

After several sub-par seasons, Giorlando and the basketball team are looking toward brighter days.

The Wolfpack finished   2007-2008 season 16-13 and placed second in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference with 12 wins this season, the most conference victories the men’s basketball team has ever won under Giorlando.

Statistically, this was Giorlando’s best season since taking over the reigns in 2004 and the most GCAC wins since joining the league in 1995.

They finished the season 19-11 earning them the third seed in the GCAC tournament; however they lost to Belhaven College in the first round.

Much of that success this season  is because the 2008-2009 season is the first year all of the players on the team are the product of Giorlando’s recruiting staff.

“It’s my fifth year here so the cycle is starting over,” Girolando said.

“The guys that I inherited from the former coaching staff have graduated so this is the first year 100 percent of the guys have been recruited by either myself or Coach Steibing and Coach Hinton.”

The recruiting process is difficult for any coach; however, according to Giorlando, the toughest part for him during the process was finding guys who could balance academic success with basketball.

“We wanted recruits that fit Loyola academically and those that could help us get to the next level,” he said.

Over the years, Giorlando has looked for several qualities in a player.

Some of those qualities were “character, trust, how they treated their siblings, parents, coaches and teammates. The other criteria were academic ability and skill level,” he said.

Although he mainly targeted prospects from Louisiana, his search for players extended across the entire nation into other parts of the world, evident by players ranging from Texas, Iowa, Indiana and Boston, to Bosnia and Australia.

“It’s not something you plan to do but sometimes it just happens that way. We hear about them or they will contact us about their interest in our school,” he said.

Giorlando believes the players he has recruited from all over the nation were drawn to Loyola because of its academic prestige and what the school had to offer them.

“Our best recruiting tool is our professors here and the academic reputation Loyola has. It by far is the number one tool that we have,” said Giorlando.

Giorlando believes that the group of guys he has recruited over the years possess exactly what he was looking for when he began scouting high school talent.

“The guys on our team have that maturity, they have chemistry with each other, and an understanding for the game,” he said.    

“They have the respect for the game of basketball on both sides of the ball offensively and defensively.”

According to Giorlando, the success the team is experiencing is just the beginning.

“I think with the players we have now, we are close to reaching our goals of winning 20 games and winning a conference championship,” he said.

“I’m content, but not satisfied yet because there is still things that are left for us to achieve. There’s a lot more room for improvement.”

With the entire team returning for the 2009-2010 season, Coach Giorlando hopes he can coninue to experience the same success the team has had over the past two years.

Craig Malveaux can be reached at [email protected].