Sophomore guard/forward Steffphon Pettigrew isn’t pulling punches in his review of the new movie Saw V.

“I didn’t like it,” Pettigrew said. “Thought it was too short.”

And while Pettigrew’s critique of the flick didn’t get rousing reviews, the Toppers’ team chemistry thus far has.

Pettigrew watched the movie with the rest of Western’s men’s basketball team several weeks ago as part of a team-building activity.

The Topper’s bench will feature plenty of new faces this season, as first-year head coach Ken McDonald has brought five new players to the program with him.

These include four foreign players and two junior-college transfers.

McDonald said that he thinks the team has good chemistry and will need it throughout the season if the team is to be successful.

“Our team gets along really well,” McDonald said. “They like each other, and they pull for each other. The chemistry is excellent. And that’s important in having a good basketball team. We will face adversity. We have a lot of road games this year, and we will have to be really tough.”

Junior guard A.J. Slaughter agrees and said that the upperclassmen on the team have been mentoring the new players in hope of preparing them for future post-season play.

“The NCAA tournament was real good for us,” Slaughter said. “The returning guys know what it feels like, so we’re even hungrier to get back there. We’re just telling the new guys and the young guys that are coming in how it is and how it is going to feel like when we get back there.”

McDonald hasn’t agreed with all of the returning players. On Oct. 9, Western released B.J. Frazier from the team, saying that he “failed to live up to the standards of the WKU basketball program.”

Pettigrew said that the team is growing stronger and closer together with every practice.

“Each and every day in practice, we have been working on chemistry,” Pettigrew said, “Off the court, we’re best of friends.”

McDonald said that chemistry between him and his assistant coaches is key too, as he is pulling together a staff from several different programs.

“Even though we all know each other, it’s almost a training process in practice,” McDonald said. “Not that they didn’t know what they were doing, but I like things my way. Obviously, that takes a little bit of time. I just want them to follow my lead from practice. We have a strong and highly educated staff that are wealthy in experience.”

Western will continue to work on team chemistry in its next exhibition game against Bellarmine at 7 p.m. on Nov. 8 in Diddle Arena.

Reach Chris Acree at sports@chherald.com.