Squires Heading Into New Season Long On Experience
Squires Heading Into New Season Long On Experience
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Mark Howe-
Squires Heading Into New Season Long On ExperienceNORTH MANCHESTER – Head coach Mark Underwood appreciates what he has with this year’s Manchester Squire boys basketball team, and is looking forward to exciting things in the upcoming season.
“So we had 10 full-time varsity players last year, and four of those graduated. The other six all had a really significant amount of varsity playing time,” Underwood said.
Junior Weston Hamby was the leading scorer on a team that lost in the sectional final to Wabash. He averaged 15.6 points a contest as a sophomore. A second returning starter, senior Thane Creager, averaged 8.3 points a game.
Seniors Austin Underwood, Kreeden Krull, Caleb Stout and junior Max Carter all saw action in a minimum of 23 games a year ago. Korbin Hensley didn’t play last year, but played as a sophomore and is back again this year.
“So we like not only Weston, who is a returning starter, but we also like the other five guys, too. We feel like they had a lot of valuable minutes last year,” said Underwood.
“We have a really good nucleus coming back, so we’re expecting good things. We had a really good summer, and were very competitive in the shootouts and different leagues that we were in.”
One of many advantages of experience is the closeness developed among a group of people with common experiences. Teammates who are close tend to encourage each other in ways many don’t fully understand.
“I really like my team chemistry,” the head coach said. “The guys seem to have the attitude that they want to make sure things get done and they really don’t care who gets the credit for it. When you see a team that’s unselfish, is making the extra pass and are genuinely happy for a teammate when they’re successful, that’s a great thing,” the coach said with a smile.
“As a coach, and a science teacher, that team chemistry is really important. If you don’t have it, you can try to encourage it but it’s hard to force. When it’s there naturally, that’s a good thing.
“I think the guys are going to work hard and they’re going to play together as a team. If we do those two things, we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”
Whether there are six letter winners returning or none, Coach Underwood said the measuring stick for success within the program doesn’t vary much.
“I know a lot of the reporters get sick of hearing me say this, but I always say I have three goals for my team,” he said. “Number one is we don’t want anybody outworking us; we want to work as hard as anybody we come up against.
“Number two: we want to continually improve. That’s something you can gauge. Number three is we want to represent this school in a class manner; we want to be good citizens and put a team out on the floor that the community can look at and be good role models for them.
“If we can do those things, we think the rest of the things kind of take care of themselves.”
Still, with experience comes expectations, both internal and external.
“We’d love to win the (Wabash) County tournament (Dec. 27) the sectional (the Squires will host this year) and the (Three Rivers) Conference. But so many things are out of our control,” Underwood said. “If you get thrown in a sectional with weak teams, you might not be as good as another year when you’re in with a bunch of really strong teams.
“Last year, at the end of the season, we were playing our best basketball, no doubt, in the sectional, and that was a result of that continual improvement.”
Manchester opens its 2019-20 season with a pair of hime games, hosting Bluffton Wednesday and Oak Hill on Saturday. Tip-off for both games is set for 7:45 p.m.
