One game at a time.
That’s the phrase Brad McCammon fits his Medora girls basketball team perfectly.
“It’s definitely a rebuilding year,” he said. “We’ve got eight total kids. There’s a lot of inexperience. We do have on senior and a couple juniors.”
The senior is 5-7 Kelsey Turner, who McCammon will look to improve her 4.3 scoring average from last year as well as provide strength on the boards and inside defense.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
The juniors are Kenley King, Kaitlyn Cobb and Rachel Jones, neither of whom played basketball last winter.
That leaves a lot of holes McCammon will have to fill with inexperience.
“As far as depth we’ll have to see where that comes from,” McCammon said. “We have three players who have never played in high school. A couple of them played in middle school. One played in fourth grade, that’s the last time she played, so I’ve got a lot of inexperience.”
Slowly bringing his team along with the basics, McCammon is hoping his girls will get as many easy chances at the bucket as they can.
“We’re trying to put in a motion offense and a couple different zone sets,” he said of his offense. “We’re trying to run very basic sets that they can just play and not think. Sometimes you’ve got to be careful if you try to get too intricate offensively. They’re worrying about where every pass is supposed to go, or where a person is supposed to be, and sometimes you can’t run a game like that.”
McCammon said Jarey Babcock has improved her ball-handling, King can handle the ball and score from mid-range when she focuses, and Mariah Cobb has shown some ability.
“You’ve got to run what the defense allows you,” McCammon said. “I don’t want a kid to say I’ve got to pass to the right wing when two people are guarding her. We’re trying to get them to think on the fly. We don’t’ have a real quick team and we don’t have a point-guard so we’re going to have to have ball handling by committee.”
Babcock, who averaged one point last season, is the only sophomore. Rounding out the roster are freshmen Maria Cobb and Serenity Atkins.
“The kids are coming to practice, they’re trying hard,” McCammon said. “I’ve seen a little improvement here and there. The biggest difficulty we’ve had understanding the team concept over the whole floor, not just themselves.
“When you’re running offensive sets and defenses and things like that it’s a learning experience,” he continued. “It’s like if you’re trying to teach kids about algebra and they haven’t seen it since second grade it makes it a little difficult.”
The Hornets are hosting the Southern Roads Conference Tournament today. Columbus Christian will play Union Duggar at 11 a.m., with Medora facing Cannelton in the second game. The consolation and championship games will follow.
Evansville Christian and Madison Christian Academy are also in the conference but will not have girls’ teams this season.
“We’re going to try to play a lot of gimmick defenses and just change it up some because we’re not a true man-to-man team, but we’re not a true zone team either,” he said. “I’m just trying to get us to do what we do well and go from here.”
The Hornets were 0-19 last year. McCammon is beginning his 16th season as head coach of the Hornets and his assistant is Garry Elkins.