Bison basketball squad debuts at scrimmage

Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette Kyle Gaston (right) looks for an opening against the defensive pressure applied by Spencer Gillen (7) during the McCook boys basketball scrimmage last Saturday night at the Senior High gym. [Click to enlarge]

The Nebraska high school basketball season is the longest of any prep sport, stretching over three months from opening practices in November to the state tournament in March.

The McCook boys hit the court at the Senior High gym last Saturday evening in the first scrimmage of the young season for the Bison. Head coach Tim Garcia and his staff put his varsity and junior varsity players through a game-like situation in the team's first public audition this winter and a dress rehearsal for Thursday's season-opening action at Chase County.

Coach Garcia was pleased with his squad's overall performance.

Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette Keith Wallace (far left) controls the basketball in front of Black squad teammate Ryan Powell (dark jersey, middle) and White team members Drew Shields (behind Powell) and Nate Crick (13) in the Bison boys basketball scrimmage at the Senior High gym Saturday night. [Click to enlarge]

"You've got to put it in perspective, it's our first scrimmage in front of fans and the community, first time getting up and down the court for this amount of minutes," Garcia said following Saturday night's workout. "I'm not a real big scrimmage coach in practice. I believe in drills and I believe in a lot of hard work through drills and execution. So this is the most they've played as far as a team scrimmage-wise.

"Overall I think they came out and performed to expectations. There's a lot of things we're going to have to fix between now and next Thursday, a lot of things we're going to have to work on, and that's a process -- the season is just starting."

Garcia said two big areas of improvement needed for the Bison after Saturday's scrimmage are defensive intensity and offensive patience.

"I think our defensive intensity has to step up ten-fold, and the kids know that," he said. "They get tired of playing against each other night-in and night-out (in practice). (Increased defensive intensity) will be a natural given next Thursday. Then our execution and our patience within our offense, letting our offense create shots for us versus trying to create our own shots. Those are the two biggest things that stood out for me. I think we'll do fine Thursday."

Season-opener Thursday night

The Bison open the 2009-10 season at Chase County Thursday in Imperial. The McCook boys and girls will play a varsity-JV double header with the Longhorns.

Saturday's scrimmage featured the Bison varsity and JV roster split into two squads. Garcia had his top varsity players on opposite sides in the scrimmage.

Garcia has a pair of big seniors in 6-5 Dustin Parde and 6-4 Mark Nichols to patrol the paint, along with his lone returning starter and leading scorer, junior Connor Larson. Seniors Ethan Hardin, Tye Smith and Nate Crick and junior Drew Shields are expected to battle for the other two starting spots.

The McCook coach hopes several other players step up on the varsity roster.

"I'm still looking for some more kids to step up and fill those support cast roles, that number four, five, six, seven, even down to eighth player," Garcia said. "We have some kids that are doing a nice job. I like the competition that we have. That's one of the things I told the kids. We haven't announced the varsity team yet. We won't announce that until Monday, because as a coaching staff we're not sure yet. Breaking down this scrimmage, watching the film and breaking it down, is going to answer a lot of questions."

After Thursday's opener, the Bison boys will face three games at the Topside Tip-off Tournament Dec. 10-12 at Goodland, Kan. Garcia's plan is to play as many boys as possible in the early-season contests.

"Early in the season I think you're able to go deeper into your bench and utilize more bodies on the court, number one because of conditioning," he said, "and number two, opportunity, because you just never know how a kid is going to play in a game. I like to give kids the opportunity in a game to step up and show us what they can do. But once we get into the heart of the season, into the mid-season, the last portion of the season, we'll get it down to seven- and eight-player rotation (on the varsity).

"I hope to play a lot of bodies early. I hope we play everybody that we suit out in Chase County. I hope we play everybody that we suit out, all 12 of them that we take to Goodland, Kan., to that tournament. That's a great opportunity early in the season just to get as many bodies as possible for evaluation purposes and just because we're not in good enough shape yet."

The Bison won district tournament championships and qualified for the Class B state tournament the past two seasons. McCook dropped a 68-57 decision to eventual state champ Ralston in first-round state meet action last March. The Bison lost a heart-breaking 44-43 overtime decision to Gretna in the first round of the 2008 Class B state tournament.

Focus on wins, power points

Coach Garcia and his team are hoping to put themselves in a position this season to build up enough points in the Nebraska Schools Activities Association's power point system to earn a wild card berth at state and not have to rely on a state meet berth by winning the single-elimination district tournament.

"That's one of the things we're focusing on," Garcia said. "We've won our district the last two years in a row. We'd love to go back and repeat this year, but one of the things these kids have talked about is not relying on winning our district to get to state. Let's put up the power points, let's put up the record necessary throughout the season to get to state on power points even if something happens that we wouldn't win our district.

"Right now our focus is winning every game that we play. Putting ourselves in a position to win at the end of the game, and then going through and actually winning every game we play, and just going out and competing and improving day-in, day-out practice or games, improving every single day."

In Nebraska Class B prep basketball, the six district champions qualify for the state tournament in Lincoln March 11-13. The next two highest-ranked teams in the NSAA power point system after districts also earn a state meet berth.

The Bison will compete with five other teams in the Class B-5 district tournament at Kearney High School Feb. 27-March 2. Adams Central, Hastings, Holdrege, Lexington and Grand Island Northwest are the other teams that will be entered in the B-5 district meet.