High school basketball preview: Southeast Buffaloes (+video)
Schedule
December – 4, at South; 8, at East; 11, West; 15, at Kapaun; 18, Carroll; 19, at North.
January – 5, at Heights; 8, at Northwest; 14, 15 or 16, TBA at Koch Arena; 19, South (G); 22-23, at Valley Center tournament (B); 26, South; 28-30, at Emporia tournament (G).
February – 2, East; 5, at West; 9, Kapaun; 12, at Carroll; 16, North; 19, Heights; 23, Northwest.
Boys
Coach: Melvin Herring, fourth season
Last season: 9-13
Top players
Jerrick Harding, 6-0, sr., G
Israel Barnes, 6-2, sr., G-F
D’Andre Franklin, 5-9, sr., G
Milan Brown, 6-1, sr., G
Brenden Jantzen, 6-7, sr., F
Jayceon Harris, 6-1, jr., G-F
Herring likes his team’s chemistry one season after he felt like everyone wasn’t necessarily on the same page when it came to the team’s goals.
“I like how this group is around each other,” Herring said. “I like how they look for each other.”
Other teams know they have to look out for Harding, who averaged 24.8 points last season. The key for Southeast getting above .500 — they finished four games below last season — will be finding more players to step up when teams put all of their focus on stopping Harding.
The return of senior guard Brycen Cobbins should help after he was out for most of last season with an injury. Barnes and Brown will also help.
Southeast’s biggest hole is in the post, where it will lean on 6-foot-7 Jantzen.
“We’ll have to rely on him quite a bit,” Herring said. “But he’s not going to have to do it by himself.”
“Everybody has to rebound,” Harding said. “Everybody has to crash, all the time.”
Girls
Coach: LaToya Randle, sixth season
Last season: 3-17
Top players
Wynter Rentas, 5-9, jr., F
NaToria McCoy, 5-10, sr., F
Alecia Verge, 5-7, jr., G
Rachel Jenkins, 6-0, sr., F
Southeast’s strength will be in its frontcourt and with its athleticism. That’s mainly because of McCoy, a gifted 5-foot-10 forward who averaged 9.3 points and 4.5 rebounds.
“She’s just very athletic, she can jump out of the gym,” said Randle, who is in her second stint as Southeast’s coach. “And she is extremely coachable. She listens really well and always goes out and competes.”
McCoy is one of two starters that return for Southeast, along Rentas. Southeast essentially gets another starter back in Jenkins, who averaged 10.5 points in the first two games before an ankle injury sidelined her.
“She was doing so well and then got injured,” Randle said. “That hurt our depth a lot when she went out, and we struggled without her.”
Depth will be the biggest question for Southeast.
“We are just very young,” Randle said. “We will have to learn as we go, and hopefully take some of the lessons we learn and apply them very quickly. Just stay focused and attentive to what’s going on around us and we can make some strides over the course of the season.”
Tony Adame
This story was originally published November 20, 2015 at 8:27 AM with the headline "High school basketball preview: Southeast Buffaloes (+video)."