What’s a basketball team to do without the scorers of 892 of their 1,115 points?
After achieving a 13-5 record, winning their division, and making it to the second round of the playoffs during the 2006-07 season, the Runnin’ Rebels, the boys’ varsity basketball team, are starting from scratch, Last season’s “big three”—Menley Khuu (‘07), Tammer Farid (’07) and Eric Knutsen (’07)—all graduated this past June.
“I was blessed last year with three kids who could really play,” coach Phil Fisher said. “I would say about 92 percent of my offense graduated. There is going to be a lot more teaching involved this year. It’s going to be a little stricter this year in terms of discipline.”
Yet, “the expectations are the same. We want to make the playoffs,” Fisher said.
Juniors Nolan Becker, Alan Tse, Steve Ye and sophomore Ethan Stumpf, all of whom played junior varsity last year, are capable of fulfilling high expectations, according to Fisher. Becker led last year’s junior varsity team with 18 points and eight rebounds per game. Tse was second on the team, scoring 15 points per game. Stumpf moved up to varsity one year early, but was also an integral member of JV last year. Ye is a very athletic player who needs to put it all together, but is capable of being successful, Fisher said.
The seniors also need to improve their play this season.
“Last year, I was a role player, I played defense and that was about it,” said senior and captain Jake LaMountain, who averaged only 2.5 points a game in the 2006-07 season. “This year I might have to step up and score, something I’m not as comfortable with, because [Khuu, Farid and Knutsen] are not there.”
At the same time, he has embraced his leadership role on the team. “This is something I was looking forward to and wanted to do,” LaMountain said.
Senior Suraj Cheema worked to improve his game over the summer by doing drills and playing against tough competition. He is very optimistic about the team’s outcome this year. “We just have to execute the plays, we’re just going to run the same plays,” he said. “If we get open shots, it’s not gonna make a big difference that [Khuu, Farid, and Knutsen] are not there.”
Fisher, also coach of the girl’s varsity volleyball team, has been busy coaching volleyball playoffs the past few weeks. The basketball team consequently lost practice time before their first game against George Washington High School at home on [day] November 28.
“For three weeks I’ve been coaching volleyball and basketball at the same time, and basketball’s been shortchanged,” Fisher said. “We don’t have time to build chemistry before the start of the regular season, but we’re going to improve all year.”