As fall sports come to an end, the time for the basketball season has begun.
Although the season officially starts with their first game, this isn’t so true for the new basketball hopefuls. The training for the season starts early in advance, namely with the ‘guts before cuts.’
“Guts before cuts is basically our strength conditioning,” basketball team alumni Teagyn Ager explained. “This year, it was one hour a day for six days. Both the boys and the girls did it, but we were in separate gyms. Some girls even conditioned with the boys team.”
After this intense training, general conditioning takes place before the ultimate test: tryouts. The boys team finished their tryout last week, while the girls tryouts took place on November 20. For the boys team, tryouts are a two-day practice. The first day is mostly filled with basketball skill drills, including shooting and dribbling. Real basketball comes into play on the second day of tryouts, when the players must practice real plays and do scrimmages before the results are released at the end of the second day.
“We find out our team right after tryouts finishes on that second day,” JV player Errion Palmer stated. “We’re always so glad to be done and even happier to find out our teams.”
Once these players receive their team assignments, that’s when practice time starts to build up. The average practice schedule for both basketball varsity teams is two hours, with 75% of that being time on the floor, and that last 30 minutes spent watching film.
“Practice is tough,” freshman player Jaylen Love admits. “I always get worried that I’m going to get cut.”
The boys basketball sport is split into three teams: varsity, junior varsity, and the freshman team. All of these teams have their first game soon, all taking place on the Tuesday of the week back from Thanksgiving break. The varsity teams are scheduled to play on Tuesdays and Fridays for both the girls and boys teams for the rest of the season.
Although the season hasn’t fully started yet, the girls know what they want this upcoming year. “We really want a student section this year,” Teagyn Ager confesses. “We want to get just as many, or even more students than football.”
Without a doubt, the student body trusts that this year’s basketball season will be its best yet.
