VALDOSTA –– The Valdosta State basketball teams held a meet-and-greet with fans as part of the “Meet the Blazers” event on Monday at the VSU P.E. Complex.

Fans, parents and students came out to get their first look at the new squads before they tip off the regular season this weekend. After players were introduced, each player gave an interesting fun fact about themselves. Blazers guard Labrian Shiflet confessed his affinity for playing the piano while VSU women’s coach Carley Kuhns announced she and her husband are expecting their third child, which drew a rousing ovation from the crowd.

“I thought (the event) was cool,” Kuhns said. “It was a way for fans to be able to sit down and interact with our players and get to know them all on a little bit more of a personal level. I think, especially for us on the women’s side, it’s much more of a personal, intimate relationship. Once they get to know you as a person, they really want to come support you as a player. We have such a great group of kids and once you get to know them, why wouldn’t you want to come support them?”

In addition to being projected to finish first in the Gulf South Conference this season, the women figure to have increased support as they come into the season ranked No. 8 in the nation. While the women’s team features nine returners from its GSC title team, Kuhns doesn’t want the extra sets of eyes on the team to distract them from the work necessary to duplicate last season’s success.

“We treat it as a bit of a feather in our caps,” Kuhns said of the outward expectations. “We’ve tried to really preach it’s based on our success last season. It’s based on what we did last year––we haven’t earned any of that this year. 

“Everything we do from here on out, we’ve got to earn and while it’s a nice compliment, we know this team hasn’t done anything yet this season and we haven’t stepped on the floor to play a game. While it gives us a bigger target on our back, we’re just trying to go night in, night out and get better every day and hopefully progress to where we’re playing our best basketball at the end of the season.”

Men’s coach Mike Helfer praised the event for allowing players to interact with young fans and spoke about the importance of players being role models in their community.

“One thing I’ve learned having two young boys myself is how influential our players are to the youth in the community,” Helfer said. “My kids know exactly what my guys wear, how they act, how they behave in the games and things like that. When you see (the players) interact out here at the Meet the Blazers, you’ve got to always remember you are a role model because these kids are watching you.”

The Blazers underwent a roster makeover in the offseason after graduating seven seniors from their 26-6 NCAA tournament roster. Though the new-look Blazers lost 112-74 to the Georgia Bulldogs in their regular season tune-up, Helfer liked how his team responded to adversity against a higher level of competition.

“How we handled ourselves through adversity, I really liked,” Helfer said. “Our guys didn’t get down, they didn’t start complaining and pointing fingers and that’s the first sign of chemistry. I’ve been doing this long enough to recognize it and I saw in the Georgia game that our guys stuck together through adverse times and I really enjoyed seeing that.”

Both teams open their regular season with the GSC-SIAC Challenge against Fort Valley State and Albany State to start the year. The Blazer women open at home on Friday while the men’s team travels to Pensacola, Fla., for the back-to-back set starting on Saturday.

“We’re really excited––we’ve been going at it from August,” Kuhns said. “It’s a grind, it’s a day-to-day grind for a basketball team and us and the men know basketball is a very long season. We’re excited to get going and play against someone other than ourselves and really come together and find out what our identity is as a team.”