Inexperienced McCook girls prep for season opener

About the only carryover from last year's McCook High School girls basketball program is the red on the Bison uniforms.

The McCook basketball program has a new head coach and no returning starters from last season. Jeff Ellis takes over as head coach, and he has a group of letter winners returning that saw little varsity playing time in 2008-09.

Ellis and his Bison girls will make their season debut Thursday, Dec. 3, with a trip to Imperial to face the Chase County Longhorns. The varsity contest will tip off at 5 p.m. before the boys varsity game. The JV girls will start at 6:30 p.m. with two eight-minute periods scheduled due to low numbers on the Chase County roster.

The new head coach said he has been pleased with his squad in pre-season drills.

"From day one they've came in with great intensity, great effort," Ellis said. "I've been telling people that the girls are like sponges right now. They're giving us their full attention. You can tell they want to work hard and they are doing everything we ask.

"Some of the things that we need to get better on in a hurry are simple fundamental skills, handling the basketball, being aggressive with the basketball.Those are a lot of the things we've been working on so far. We haven't gotten into the X's and O's as much as I would have liked, but we have to create some things before we get there so we can have some success."

Coach Ellis said last year's Bison girls team lost a host of seniors to graduation. Ellis will lean on his returning players from last season to be leaders on this year's squad.

"We're going to rely on those girls, and some of that experience that they have," he said. "It's not much but the experience they do have, we're asking a lot out of them to be leaders on the court."

Ellis said he has a roster full of quick, athletic players that will have to make up for a lack of size and inexperienced varsity players.

Coach now closer to home

The new McCook coach moved back closer to home after coaching and teaching the past five years in Houston, Texas at the junior high level. Ellis is a Gothenburg native who attended college at the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

Chase County has dropped to Class C-2 this season in basketball. The Longhorns reportedly have low numbers on the roster this season. Chase County won just six games in the regular season last year. With Chase County jumping up two classes to face the Bison, Coach Ellis expects Thursday's opponent to give his team a tough test.

"They are going to give us their best effort, give us their best shot. It's going to be a good game," he said. "They've got this one marked, and they are going to want to try and come out with a win to start the season. So are we, that's our goal.

"This will be a good test for us to see where we're at. In practice it's kind of hard to gauge, to be honest with you, where we're at due to that lack of experience that we have. For a lot of the girls, a lot of the stuff we're doing is new to them. At times they struggle with it. But they are giving great effort. But it's time for a game, it's time to get a game under our belts to see where we're at."

The Bison girls are also scheduled to visit Grand Island Northwest Saturday, Dec. 5.