Head Coach Ken McDonald said this year’s Western basketball team has the potential to go places.

Without playing a regular-season game, it already has.

The Toppers’ 12-man roster represents nine different states as well as Canada and Montenegro. Junior forward Sergio Kerusch said those vastly different backgrounds haven’t stopped the team from becoming a tightly-knit bunch heading into the season.

“We’re a unit, and we’re in the process of becoming a family,” Kerusch said. “We’re brothers, basically. We see each other more than we see our own parents and everything. We have to bond and have each other’s backs.”

This summer, McDonald dismissed incoming freshmen Terrence Boyd, Western’s highest-rated recruit, and David Laury from the team less than a month after the two arrived on campus.

Both Boyd and Laury had been viewed as assets to the team’s future, but McDonald said the bad may have outweighed the good concerning certain pieces of the incoming class.

“In recruiting, you want talent, but you want that chemistry,” McDonald said. “If you have guys that you’re worried about with the chemistry, you either try to mentor them or you get rid of them. The guys that we have right now in the program all get along great, and I’m proud to say that we have a chance to be a very good team because of that — because of the chemistry.”

What’s left of this year’s class will still contribute, McDonald said.

Junior college transfer Cliff Dixon will get any minutes that Laury would have played. With the presence of senior guard A.J. Slaughter, Boyd may have been more of a luxury than a necessity, he said.

More important is that four of the team’s five returning starters should be able to accomplish more in less time this season after a year of working together, Slaughter said.

“It has a lot to do with chemistry, talent level and just experience,” he said. “Guys that were there last year know what it takes.”

McDonald said like last season, when the Toppers sputtered to an early 1-2 record but recovered to finish 25-9, the coaching staff’s push for better team chemistry doesn’t end when the season begins.

And the second-year head coach will enjoy the benefit of his efforts — camaraderie.

“It’s always a lot of fun to see different guys hanging out with each other,” McDonald said. “You’ll see (freshman guard) Jamal Crook with (senior center) Nemenja (Milosevic), and it just cracks you up, because they’re just different.”