Jonathan Alder’s basketball team took on their division rivals at home on Dec 6, coming out with a huge win. The win means a 2-0 start to the season.
Overall, the team noticed its game-ruling offense.
Alder’s assistant coach Thomas Urban says, “[our strongest plays] were when we attacked. When we attacked and when we played for each other. When we drove, when we kicked it, it was really good.”
Senior team member Blake Adkins says the best aspect of this game was the ball movement.
“I think we moved the ball pretty well. Our defense was also really good, so one of those two,” he says.
Adkins praises the coaching staff, who helped the team prepare by scouting and film watching.
“We just scouted them, and then we ran through their sets. The coaching staff does a good job of doing that and going ahead so us players are prepared.”
Watching film helped the team prepare for the way Urbana guards.
“We knew that they kind of guard in a funky way… their baseline help is way farther over than normal so we knew that,” Urban says. “They were doing a lot of what is called zoom action offensively, so we were looking to take away that zoom action.”
Urban stays confident in the teams’ lineup after the win. “I think that it [this win] just affirms that we have a really solid top 7, 8, 9 guys. If you look at our JV team, our JV team is super strong, if you look at our freshman team, we’re 2-0. Top to bottom program wide, we have a lot of really, really good basketball players, a lot of really good kids.”
Although the team left with a win, they still had some struggles they had to overcome.
“At the end, we got a little lackluster and didn’t try as hard. We just got to keep the standard and make sure that we’re still going the whole way,” Adkins says.
The team has goals to go far this season.
“[Our] goals for the upcoming games is to win the CBC,” says Urban. “We didn’t win the CBC last year, so that’s our number one goal of the year is to win the CBC. Then obviously a big one as well. First district championship since 1979 last year, so we’d love to get a shot to repeat this year at that.”
The team will continue on to play their first away game at River Valley High School on Tuesday, Dec 10, with the freshman team beginning at 4:30, JV starting at 6, and Varsity at 7:30.
