After coaching the Trinity Lutheran girls basketball team for the past 12 seasons, Mike Lang decided it was time for a change.
Lang will begin his first season as head coach for the Trinity boys tonight when they host South Decatur with the junior varsity game set to start at 6 p.m.
“We had a good, productive summer,” he said. “It’s raised a lot of our expectations as far as coming into this year. We found some kids that are going to step up. I told them many times our expectations weren’t going to change. We’re going to expect to contend and compete for a sectional championship.”
Seniors Kowan Gross, Peyton Pollert and Levi Pottschmidt played in all 23 games last season and the other senior, Charlie Hackman, played in 19 games.
Pottschmidt averaged 7.2 points per game, Gross averaged 6.9, Pollert 3.6 and Hackman 2.3. Sophomore Jack Stuckwisch played in 11 varsity games and averaged 11 points per game.
“We want to play inside out,” Lang said. “Kowan has done a tremendous job in the early going. He has really picked his game up. If we can get Kowan going down low, we’ve got some shooters around him on the outside that can knock the 3-ball down. We want to play downhill and try to get to the basket as much as we can.”
There is a stiff battle going on for playing time at guard among Stuckwisch, Pottschmidt, Hackman and freshmen Hunter Lang and Reed Mellencamp.
“That gives us plenty of options to score on the outside,” coach Lang said. “It gives us a lot of depth. Sometimes, there is only one ball to go around with all those guys. We’ve got pretty good guard depth. We’ve got to develop more depth for Kowan down low. Kade Gillaspy and Peyton Pollert have done an outstanding job filling in for Kowan.”
Lang said it is going to have to be a team effort on rebounding.
“It depends on how well our guards rebound. Kowan can’t do it all low. Peyton is a really good rebounder. He’s physical down low, and he will bang with anybody,” he said. “If we can get the guards to rebound and get out and run in transition, that’s ultimately what we want to do.”
He said he has had the Cougars spend a lot of time in half-court man defense.
“That was an area of weakness with the guys over the summer, and even in the last year for them, they played a lot of different zones. We just feel they’ve got to know how to play man-to-man defense, so that’s been all of our focus so far,” Lang said. “Maybe throughout the year, we’ll start sprinkling in some press and some different defenses, but we’ve just got to get gritty in the half-court.”
Lang said his team needs to be strong mentally.
“Hopefully, we’re going to be tougher than our opponents,” he said. “We’ve had some really good practices, and the guys are buying into the toughness aspect. Hopefully, we can beat some teams in transition and put more points on the scoreboard than they did last year.”
The Cougars, 6-17 last winter, will play in the Switzerland County Holiday Tournament on Dec. 29 and 30.