NASHVILLE
Much of the behind-the-scenes work for high school basketball programs takes place during the summer months.
Coaches are able to spend more time teaching the game, implementing new offenses and defenses, and figuring out personnel.
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On Tuesday, both Seymour and Crothersville brought their varsity and junior varsity teams to play a trio of games at Brown County High School.
Owls don’t drop a game
Seymour opened with a 51-46 win over Crothersville before beating Brown County 49-23 and Wood Memorial 44-37.
The Owls will resemble a much different team than the one that took the court in the 2017-18 season.
SHS graduated seven seniors from its program, including all five of its starters.
Third-year Owls coach Tyler Phillips said he should have three seniors on the team this season, and the team will be junior-heavy.
Nine players were listed as sophomores on last year’s roster for SHS.
Only two players that had any significant varsity playing time last season — senior Jack Roberts and junior Aiden Goen — will take the floor again for the Owls.
The Owls finished 12-12 last year on varsity, which was their best finish since 2010 when the team went 10-10.
“I’ve got some boys that need to learn quick,” Phillips said. “I’m bringing back two guys that played at the varsity level. They have a quick learning curve, we’re putting them through a lot — offensive and defensive schemes they haven’t heard before.”
During the games in Nashville, Phillips played 10 different boys on the floor in two groups. He said he’s looking to see who will step up and fill the varsity roster.
“We lost seven guys and I go eight or nine deep,” Phillips said. “I have seven or eight spots open and we need to find out who wants them. We’re looking for defensive intensity and who is going to play with a purpose. We’re seeing that every day in practice and it carried over today. I saw what I figured I would see.”
While Brown County served as the first competition for the Owls this summer, they have a busy week ahead of them. They will host some games on Tuesday before going to Whiteland on Thursday and Springs Valley on June 29 before returning home on Saturday.
“We weren’t in a position where we could play all month,” Phillips said. “We’re trying to learn a new offensive scheme and how to play together. We’re in a position right now where we need to teach and focus on us. We spent all of June teaching, and next week we will play 15-20 games.”
Phillips said its important — especially for this year’s upcoming team — to be playing in the summer.
“We need to have them out here getting reps because we’re trying to learn about ourselves,” Phillips said. “If we had eight or nine seniors coming back, it would be a different story. We’re going to be junior heavy. We need to learn to play together and its important to get it in now so we don’t have to learn that come November.”
Seymour’s JV also went 3-0 on the day
There have also been some major changes for the Owls on the sidelines this off season. SHS hired Dwayne Williams as the freshman head coach, Jackson Ryan as the JV coach and Chase Trueblood as a varsity assistant.
“Coach Ryan was a JV coach at Terre Haute North and also an assistant at Orleans. He’s originally a BNL (Bedford North Lawrence) guy,” Phillips said. “Coach Trueblood is coming to us from Evansville Harrison. He was the varsity assistant and freshman coach down there. Coach Williams comes to us from out west: Arizona and California. He has been a varsity head coach and college assistant for the past 30 years. We’re glad to have all three of those guys.”
Tigers putting in work
Crothersville’s boys basketball coach Greg Kilgore likes the direction the team is heading.
The Tigers have played in four shootouts so far this summer, and will go to a camp in Terre Haute over the weekend and play another 15 games.
CHS returns five seniors, six juniors and four sophomores to this year’s team. They graduated five players and return three starters.
After falling to Seymour, the Tigers dropped a tight game against Wood Memorial 52-42 before beating Brown County 55-46.
“We have played three other days that were similar to this,” Kilgore said. “I think the kids have grown even though we’ve yet to have a full team at any one of these shootouts. The good thing, when you’re missing some kids, you can plug some role players in and figure out how you’re going to use them during the season. That’s what June is all about — building for next year.”
Senior Logan Brewer and junior Josh Thomas, both members of The Tribune’s 2018 All-County team, picked up the bulk of the offensive responsibilities while sophomore point guard Cable Spall also played a significant role in the offense.
“Logan and Josh both could easily be our go-to guys and I think Cable is a good fill-in guy that hit shots when those two are double-teamed,” Kilgore said. “We have kids that can put the ball in the hole if we need them to.”
The Tigers were without starter Lane Wienhorst, and Carson Farmer, which allowed some fringe varsity players court time.
Last season, the Tigers went 15-9. It was the first winning season for the program since 2012.
“I’m really excited for this team,” Kilgore said. “John Riley, who does our biddy ball, reminded me last night this could be the first back-to-back winning seasons for Crothersville in about 33 years.”
Crothersville’s JV team went 0-3 on the afternoon. In total, the Tigers brought 17 players to the shootout.
Kilgore said the Tigers will take a few weeks off in July after next week’s camp.