Well I'm ready for some hoops. We should have a better record in basketball than football. I'm expecting us to be slightly less than .500. Does anybody think there will be a spill over from football into basketball and we'll be worse than expected? I'm thinking we'll have a solid 5 to start but not a deep bench.

We have two starters back in Luke and Amir so those guys will be asked to do LOTS for this team. Conway saw as much time as some of the starters last year and is just a sophomore that will also start. I am guessing that Shaffer and Tre Allen will round out the starting 5.
Flash...our bench will indeed be our biggest issue.

Nate Holvik will play a lot and probably start. He's the other big guy that got to play some last year.

Flash;1675798 wrote:Nate Holvik will play a lot and probably start. He's the other big guy that got to play some last year.

Was told he would come off the bench again. The course of the season will change things though

Flash;1675392 wrote:Well I'm ready for some hoops. We should have a better record in basketball than football. I'm expecting us to be slightly less than .500. Does anybody think there will be a spill over from football into basketball and we'll be worse than expected? I'm thinking we'll have a solid 5 to start but not a deep bench.

Football season was about exactly what many expected.

I agree , we were what I expected in football but do you think attitudes will be effected and we'll be worse in B ball due to football. I haven't been to see any scrimmages, is Owens coming out?

I don't think there will be any negative effect from football. The attitudes were not bad from the kids in football from what I have heard. I would think Owens will be out and I have no inside info on that....as soon as shoulder is healed? Not sure when that will be...

The attitudes should absolutely be affected. These kids should be sick and tired of losing!! That would make MOST kids want to play harder, etc. This team WILL lose plenty of games, but it won't be from a lack of effort. I haven't seen a Sly coached team not give their best effort. We will lose for the same reason the football team lost...lack of talent!

Old Rider;1676063 wrote:The attitudes should absolutely be affected. These kids should be sick and tired of losing!! That would make MOST kids want to play harder, etc. This team WILL lose plenty of games, but it won't be from a lack of effort. I haven't seen a Sly coached team not give their best effort. We will lose for the same reason the football team lost...lack of talent!

I am glad you put the last part on there because the football team did not lose because of effort (on the field). I do think there needs to be more effort in the weight room. That is a different topic...

Scrimmage tonight at the high school vs. Garfield and Oberlin. I believe it starts at 5. Varsity will be in the main gym, JV and frosh are in the old gym and multi.

I thought we looked OK. I think we'll be able to rebound and handle the ball by committee. We are not deep (7) and I have some concerns if we are not hitting our outside shots as to how we'll score. Garfield and Oberlin looked OK but are not the same competition we'll be seeing in the OCC. I think we have room for improvement and after things jell and we're battle tested in the OCC, we should be a decent tournament team. Take what I say with a grain of salt because I know nothing about basketball, Old Rider can attest to that.

Flash;1676620 wrote:I thought we looked OK. I think we'll be able to rebound and handle the ball by committee. We are not deep (7) and I have some concerns if we are not hitting our outside shots as to how we'll score. Garfield and Oberlin looked OK but are not the same competition we'll be seeing in the OCC. I think we have room for improvement and after things jell and we're battle tested in the OCC, we should be a decent tournament team. Take what I say with a grain of salt because I know nothing about basketball, Old Rider can attest to that.

LOL! Sounds like a good report Flash.

I watched our opening few quarters against Garfield and I would agree with everything Flash said (other than the part about him knowing nothing about basketball...Coach Wooden has nothing on you)!!

We certainly aren't deep. We can't rely on one guy to do all the scoring. We will need Luke to do his thing and then have Conway, Allen, and Simpson get what they can get. A bad shooting night by the Riders and we will get blown off the floor.

I know its VERY early, but these kids have had plenty of time to practice with a football not going to the playoffs. My biggest concern was our turnovers. We made some really bad passes and the ball handling needs to run through Luke or Allen....and thats it!

I'm gonna say 8-10 regular season wins.

Conway would be the other ball handler but doesn't seem to have the court sense as to opposing players stealing the ball from him. He's OK when he's going full blast down the court but doesn't seem to dribble drive as well. I haven't seen some of the younger players and we may get some help from them.

OCC standings and schedules: http://d3wooster.pitmanstats.com/league.php?id=51

Scores from the first weekend:

Coventry 59 Orrville 52
Lexington 55 Hiland 50
Mansfield Madison 58 Shelby 44
Medina 49 Ashland 42
Ontario 75 Clear Fork 47
West Holmes 65 Claymont 39
Lexington 53 Willard 44
Norwalk 44 Mansfield Madison 43
Ashland 69 Sandusky 54

Good luck tonight Red Riders! Beat Smithville!!

...WQKT will also have it on.

Boys sports in Orrville right now....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jGSvxCRp4

Old Rider;1684905 wrote:Boys sports in Orrville right now....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jGSvxCRp4

Amen! Thank the lord we have the women's programs...all that is keeping Orrville alive in sports.

Boy's looked better tonight. Came out an played harder in the first quarter. WH doesn't have a whole lot other than Neer. He's strong but just doesn't have enough help to be a contender. Amir had some good looks and scored 10. We ran some offense so that it looked like we weren't just running down and jacking it up. Big improvement from earlier in the week where we looked bad.

I assumed they let RRN into the locker room for a pregame speech. Most obvious reason why the team looked better.

WOW...back to the drawing board boys! That effort last night was aweful. Hats off to Ashland as they are a very good team. They run the floor well, they have good size, and have several good long ball shooters. They WILL win the conference.
Orrville...we need more kids that want to win and WANT to be there. I saw more hanging heads and pouting than what I would see in a nursery school room. Suck it up boys or turn your shit in!

Last night definitely highlighted our weaknesses. More defense, more ball handling and less turnovers, and more team play. They'd beat us 10 out of 10 but the margin should be less. We have no depth and they were 8-10 deep. The people coming in need to step it. Coming in making a couple 3's and not playing D or handling the ball doesn't help us. We are playing without confidence and we'll need to change that.

Happy to hear the trail hasn't grown cold in the search for a new league. Sounds like Indian Valley & Tusky Valley have been invited to a new league and that may in turn create 2 openings in the PAC.

Per our AD, the average travel time to an OCC game is 41 minutes, it's 21 minutes if us & Northwest join the PAC. That's a lot of savings in fuel over the course of hundreds of middle school and high school events.

Average OCC enrollment in 10th - 12th grade is 396, in the PAC it would be something like 250.

Needs to happen. Someone buy Jim France at Manchester a new car or something and get his blessing on us joining the league. He's the main problem.

Crowds at home and away contests would be better and we'd be playing teams our size.....and with 8 teams per region making the playoffs in football, the days of us needing to "play up" are over.

RedRider1;1693007 wrote:Happy to hear the trail hasn't grown cold in the search for a new league. Sounds like Indian Valley & Tusky Valley have been invited to a new league and that may in turn create 2 openings in the PAC.

Per our AD, the average travel time to an OCC game is 41 minutes, it's 21 minutes if us & Northwest join the PAC. That's a lot of savings in fuel over the course of hundreds of middle school and high school events.

Average OCC enrollment in 10th - 12th grade is 396, in the PAC it would be something like 250.

Needs to happen. Someone buy Jim France at Manchester a new car or something and get his blessing on us joining the league. He's the main problem.

Crowds at home and away contests would be better and we'd be playing teams our size.....and with 8 teams per region making the playoffs in football, the days of us needing to "play up" are over.

Yep if the boys don't want to put in the work needed to play up then you better soften the schedule. Get that blue ribbon....

How much hard work does it take to overcome schools with twice the enrollment as us?