Celebrating Thanksgiving the old fashioned way

Saturday, November 28, 2009

"I think we're making some progress. You're a little bit strapped for time because, starting last year. we lost the week due to the extra week of the football playoffs."

The Nevada High School boys' basketball team and head coach John McNeley are short on time, but not short on dedication heading into the 2009 season. The Tigers are more ready to play, McNeley said, than many of the past groups he has seen, but still have a long way to go thanks to having such a short amount of time for preseason practices.

The Tigers have been putting their main focus recently into simple conditioning. Conditioning has taken a back seat the past couple of years thanks to the need to get the practice they needed on other aspects of the game in, but this year, McNeley has placed much more emphasis on making sure the conditioning is on par before the season begins.

McNeley said that the Tigers will be returning four members from last year's team -- all seniors -- to provide a substantial amount of solid leadership to the younger players. Among those four seniors, Ross Wolfe and Tyler Dobson will be the only two starters returning from last year's team and hopes are high for the production and leadership potential that both of those players will bring to the table.

"They will start again, I mean, that's certainly our intention at this point in time. It's going to be a new world for Ross because Ross is going to be looked upon as being the guy that people have to come after and stop a little bit, McNeley said. "And he proved himself as a basketball player over the course of the last part of last season, so he's our one known quantity in terms of being able to produce offensively."

Dobson is a slightly different story for the Tigers as his role will simply be one of expansion. Most of his high school career, the vast majority of his production has come in the defensive side of the ball and in rebounding, but McNeley said that his offensive production will be expected to expand throughout the course of the coming season.

"We'll look for him (Dobson) to produce more points and I think some of his point production will probably come off of the offensive boards, but we simply need to have him look at the basket a little more consistently that what he has in the past," McNeley said. "We need him to be the guy that shoots the basketball a little more this year, for sure."

The Tigers have faced a number of losses thanks to graduation from last year's team and the most notable of those losses came in the form of an MSHSAA eligibility issue relating to Parker Richardson. Richardson was one of the biggest offensive contributors on last year's team, but the Tigers are fully prepared to move on in his absence.

"We were prepared all along and played without him all summer long. ...You know, MSHSAA is going to do what they feel is best and it didn't ever even really get to the appeals process," McNeley said. "I mean, Mr. and Mrs. Richardson decided to withdraw the appeal, so we'll really never know how MSHSAA would have ruled. But Parker has moved on to other things. You know, he's enjoying his senior year of school, so we certainly wish him the best. We'd like to have him, but we don't, so we've got to move on."

The Tigers have a very unusual mix of players on their roster this year as they have no juniors playing in the coming season. The Tigers will have their four seniors and the remainder of the roster will be comprised of six sophomores.

Despite the young age of the largest portion of this year's team, they are not lacking in basketball experience. They are probably the most experienced group to come through the program in recent years, possibly ever, McNeley said, and will not be intimidated at the varsity level.

The Tigers have lost a number of key players due to graduation of injury, but McNeley still has very high hopes for this year's group. This year's team is no stranger to the game and have in some cases played upwards of 40-50 games over the course of the summer, thus giving them a head start on the season before some others may have even started to think about basketball.

The Tigers possess a roster full of incredible talent this season and will have a number of young players that will be able to produce at high levels all year. Kyle Banes and Joseph Ferry are among some of the names that have come to the top of that list, but the talent runs up and down the Tigers' entire 2009-'10 roster.

The Tigers are continuing to hold high hopes, but McNeley still has his reservations heading into the season opening tournament at Carthage High School that is scheduled to start on Monday. Despite those reservations, however, McNeley said that he still has very high expectations for his team and believes that they will be able to overcome the adversities set before them to have a successful season.

"I'm definitely a guy that never felt like his team was ready in the past and I won't feel like we're ready to play come next Monday, but you have no choice in the matter. You've got to lace them up and take the floor," he said. "I do think that this is a group that's probably more ready; I don't think we're completely ready, but I think we'll be more ready than some of the teams we've had in the past."

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