Casting call for Vikings
Geneva boys basketball team looks for fresh blood this summer after graduating entire starting lineup
GENEVA – The Geneva boys basketball team has plenty of concerns heading into the 2009-10 season, but Vikings coach Phil Ralston doesn’t see summer basketball as the time to gather answers.
Rather, it’s a time to identify such questions while continuing to teach the system he put in place this time last year when he took over the program.
“It’s summer basketball,” Ralston said Wednesday on the final night of the Geneva Summer League. “I don’t put a lot of stock into it. For me, it’s not about wins and losses. It’s about seeing the guys who are starting to improve and what areas the guys are going to need to improve in as the season goes on.
“It’s always kind of nebulous in the sense that you’re taking two classes that haven’t played together and you want to see how well it’s going to work.”
One thing Ralston does know for certain is Jeremy D’Amico is gone as a go-to scorer and there isn’t any one individual who will step up and fill that void on his own. He is, however, optimistic the void can be filled collectively.
“We’re going to have a lot more depth to our team than what we had last year,” Ralston said. “I think we went seven, eight deep. I think we have the potential where realistically we could go nine or 10 deep.”
The Vikings will be without all five starters from the 2008-09 team that won a share of the Western Sun Conference title, and the top six players in the rotation will not have a familiar face. As a result, the new faces getting minutes this summer have been using the time as a first audition.
“It shows the coaches who has got commitment, how you can play and how much you can improve,” senior-to-be J.P. Landry said.
Among those who have impressed Ralston are junior-to-be Brad Bernhard as well as Landry and fellow senior guards Nolan Block and Scott Wendt.
Bernhard played on the sophomore team last year and figures to fill the role vacated in the post by Tyler Scofield, according to Ralston, but Bernhard at the moment is more concerned with getting the team to click than worrying about how many minutes he’ll get come high school season.
“We walked into camp a few weeks ago and had never played a game together,” Bernhard said. “Really, it’s just putting it together and trying to get better, whether it’s winning or staying close with teams.”
Landry figures to be one of many guards to get a look from Ralston’s coaching staff. He didn’t break in as a junior, but Ralston has been impressed with how he has grown in the time he has known him.
“He’s one of those kids who was more of a JV player last year and he’s made those strides into his senior year where he’s really starting to come into his own,” Ralston said. “He has some nice athleticism, a nice long body and skill-wise he’s getting there. If he makes that next step, he’s one of the kids we’re looking at as a potential starter.”
Geneva, a 21-win team this past season, went 4-4 in the four-week Geneva Summer League. It wrapped things up Wednesday night with a 47-42 victory over Sycamore, and though the version of Vikings basketball that will take the court come November is still in its infancy, Landry thinks a bit of an identity is beginning to develop.
“We’re not very big,” Landry said. “We’re pretty quick. We’ve got a lot of guards. It’s going to be tough to find one set guard. I think we’ll be rotating in that position a lot. But I’d say we’re a quick team.”