Basketballs steadily bounced around the court in the gym. The game was about to begin for the boys basketball team and every watcher around the court eagerly waited for it to finally commence. The boys seemed to be nervous about what the outcome of the game might be, but they had no time to worry at that point. In an instant, balls went into hoops consistently, the boys seemingly trying to get as many in as possible, their time for a warmup about to run out. The time instantaneously runs out, the game soon commences and the team is ready for the new game.
“We have our talk in the locker room and we go talk about the opponent and what we’re supposed to do. Then we go out and warm up for about 15 minutes. We do some warm up drills,” said Head Coach Bobby Sanders. “And then the national anthem plays and they introduce the starting lineups and it gets really exciting. The crowd gets excited and then the game finally starts.”
With many games coming around the corner, their days are filled with practice and preparation for the many challenges and competition that they have to go through during the game. Though their days are filled with many intense and time taking practices, the basketball team has great coaches like Sanders, and Assistant Coaches Brian Knight, Eric Lewis, Steve Meyers, and Brett Carter to encourage them to continue head on.
“I always try to stay positive and just try to help the guys have fun because if they’re not having fun, it’s hard to play well,” said Sanders. “So that is the approach I’m taking this year for the teams.”
Although the boys basketball team does have a ton of support from their head coach and assistant coaches along with each other, many significant changes have come along this year that have put a line on what this year’s team looks like and what last year’s team was.
“So this season, we started the year with a bunch of young players with very little varsity experience, so we’re having some growing pains because we have two freshmen, three sophomores and a few juniors on our team. So we are really young compared to most of our city teams. That is the biggest difference from last year’s team,” said Sanders.
In spite of the fact that there have been many significant changes from last year to this year that might have caused a setback, many wins are still guaranteed for the boys basketball teams and their succeeding is guaranteed, especially according to students like Senior Grant Schulenberg.
“We are still learning. We have got a really young team. We are trying to bring people up that we think will fit,” said Schulenberg. “I see our season definitely going in the positive soon, I have a feeling we’re going to be winning a lot.”
With the significant changes that have happened in the Boys Basketball team, their training is bound to become more intense so that they can be trained more efficiently. With training that seems to take a great deal of effort, some boys on the team can start to struggle and become worn out, even for players like Senior Colten Collins. Although when that happens, the coaches and assistant coaches try their best to restore the energy and keep things moving smoothly with the teams.
“Whenever we are struggling, I think our coach just puts us in a huddle and tries to talk us through struggling and we bring our energy up and then we try to move past all the negative stuff,” said Collins.
The boys on the basketball teams this year/season also seem to have some notable competition that can be taken into account. Although the players do have some competition and some obstacles that have been coming their way this season, the wins that they get are confirmation of their success this year.
“The greatest competition we have this year has got to be Seven Lakes. That has been the biggest game on our schedule, even for the sub varsity teams. It was a goal every year to just sweep them,” said Schulenberg. “But the Varsity games last year, being able to see it on the court, it was fun. All the fans, like all the students there, parents. It was just a very crazy & fun environment.”
