High school basketball preview: Andover Trojans (+video)
Schedule
December – 4, at Maize South; 8, McPherson; 11, Andover Central; 15, at Arkansas City; 18, Great Bend.
January – 5, at Eisenhower; 8, Goddard; 12, Valley Center; 14, 15 or 16, vs. TBA at Koch Arena; 21-23, at Salina tournament; 26, at Derby.
February – 2, Hutchinson; 5, at Andover Central; 9, Arkansas City; 12, at Goddard; 16, Eisenhower; 19, Maize South; 23, at Valley Center.
Boys
Coach: Chad Wilmott, fourth season
Last season: 8-13
Top players
Chase Oberg, 6-3, jr., G
Drake Short, 5-9, sr., G
Nick Kellerman, 6-4, jr., F
Jacob Wilson, 5-10, jr., G
Andover won’t have the same kind of foundation or look the same as it has in recent seasons under Wilmott, but that won’t change what the coach expects from his team.
There aren’t an abundance of hulking posts ready made to run Wilmott’s high-low post offense, but Andover will still run its normal sets and play its typical style of defense. They’re just going to have to find a way to produce the same results.
“The biggest thing to me about this team is that we just need to compete,” Wilmott said. “That’s a phrase I’m going to use every day in every practice, every drill, every game. We just need to compete in every phase of the game and we’ll be fine.”
Oberg, Short and Kellerman all received regular playing time last season, but not in the same roles they will play this season. Wilson also adds another option at guard to compliment Short, the team’s point guard.
Wilmott views the December games as a trial period where he will be mixing and matching rotations to see which ones are the most effective.
“It’s going to be a learning experience with how inexperienced we’re going to be this season,” Wilmott said. “We’re all going to have to be patient and know that this is going to take a lot of work. I’m probably going to have to stop and coach them up a little more than I’ve had to in past seasons.”
That means Andover will have to rely on its defense early while it navigates through the rough stretches on offense.
But that’s what Wilmott loves about this team – how hard it is willing to work for him.
“I love to see that kind of heart and that mentality, and there are times where I actually have to reign them back in,” Wilmott said. “I love that about them, but at the same time we can’t just play hard, we want to play hard and execute as well.”
Girls
Coach: Max Hamblin, 11th season
Last season: 18-4
Top players
Rylie Evenson, 5-8, sr., F
Lauren Siebuhr, 5-6, sr., G
Kaitlyn Seabrook, 6-0, jr., F
Hailey Jones, 5-1, so., G
Isabelle Reynolds, 6-0, so., F
It’s not often in the last decade coaching at Andover that Hamblin discovers something significant when he takes his team to play in the summer.
Usually it’s a disjointed effort, good enough for summer ball but hard to translate to how Hamblin wants to play in the winter. But this summer was different.
Maybe it was because Andover had zero lettermen returning from last season’s team, so Hamblin didn’t know what to expect. But this summer he feels like he discovered a lot about what he will be working with this season.
“I remember a game where they got down by 15 and in the summer, those are games that you typically lose, especially with so many inexperienced kids,” Hamblin said. “But they dug deep and they battled and came back and won that game. This team has some grit and they’re determined and they know what’s at stake this season.”
What’s at stake this season is continuing the winning tradition that has been established, as Andover has won at least 16 games for seven consecutive seasons.
That may be a tall task for a team with no one who has played a varsity minute yet, but it’s the expectation that Hamblin wants his team striving toward.
Andover will have some height to work with in the post, as 6-foot posts Seabrook and Reynolds will be featured in the blocks. Hamblin is optimistic about the team’s guard play and thinks a few underclassmen could end up playing big roles with Evenson and Siebuhr, the team’s seniors, leading the way.
“This season is going to be about piecing it all together and getting some experience,” Hamblin said. “It may take us a while to put it together, but eventually we’re going to get there and we have some nice talent to work with.”
While there are so many unknowns entering the season with how the team will score and where the production will come from, Hamblin knows this team has heart and that’s the one trait he would want to build his team around.
“They have some grit and they have that get-after-it attitude,” Hamblin said. “When you have that, you’re always excited to see how that plays out when you get a group like this.”
Taylor Eldridge
This story was originally published November 26, 2015 at 9:14 AM with the headline "High school basketball preview: Andover Trojans (+video)."