Warriors enter season with young team
ARLEE JUNIOR basketball player Rory Bird tries to break a trap during the Warriors’ practice Friday morning at Arlee High School. (Jason Blasco/Lake County Leader)
ARLEE BASKETBALL Player Greg Whitesell (with the ball) shots teammate Alex Moran pressuring him during the Friday morning practice at Arlee High School. (Jason Blasco/Lake County Leader)
ARLEE HIGH School basketball players Cody Tanner and Rory Bird trap Darshan Bolen during the Friday morning practice at Arlee High School. (Jason Blasco/Lake County Leader)
ARLEE PHIL Malatare looks for the open man while being guarded by Tyler Tanner during Friday mornings practice at Arlee High School. (Jason Blasco/Lake County Leader)
ARLEE — Arlee boys basketball coach Zanen Pitts said he knows he will have restoration work to do headed into the 2016-2017 campaign.
The Warriors’ basketball team lost a total of six players from a team that lost to Belt in the semifinals of last year’s Class-C state basketball tournament.
Pitts knows the rebuilding of his team will “take time.”
“We graduated six seniors last year and this year we are starting two seniors,” Pitts said. “It will be a rebuilding year. We have a lot of young kids and there will be a lot of big shoes to fill.”
Pitts chose to compensate for his team’s inexperience by creating a schedule that will be expedite his young team’s learning curve by having a difficult schedule.
“The whole thing with a younger team is to get minutes and experience to get them where you want them to be,” Pitts said. “That way, come February or early March, they will be used to big tough games. That will allow the kids to get seasoned and learn the system fast.”
The Warriors will return two of their all-state players from last season: Tyler Tanner and Phillip Malatare. Tanner was a three time all-state player and Malatare received all-state accolades twice.
During the summer, the Warriors schedule between 26 and 30 full season games.
“We treat the summer just like the regular season,” Pitts said. “Our players were pretty successful and most of them learned their new roles. A lot of these kids are pretty humble, have accepted their role, and have a commitment to winning. They are all pretty comfortable with what their roles are and have a desire to get back there again.”
Junior point guard Malatare said he understands it will be a transition because of the Warriors’ youth.
“We have a lot of young kids and spots to fill from last year,” Malatare said. “All of the kids that are coming up are really good kids. I think we will learn our roles and do just fine.”
Malatare said the expectations couldn’t be higher despite the inexperience.
“We want to go undefeated all the way and get to the state tournament,” Malatare said. “Two years ago we went undefeated and only lost one game (throughout the season).”
Shooting guard Tyler Tanner said he felt one of his jobs as the team leader is just getting his Warrior teammates “on board.”
“We just kind of need to get everyone on board with figuring out their roles and give us a complete team,” Tanner said. “We will have two returning starters from last year and one younger starter that will have to ‘buy into their roles’and make us successful.”
Tanner said his experience as one of the team leaders will help guide the younger players.
“It really helps a lot being there all three years, and playing really good teams at Divisionals and at state,” Tanner said. “The younger players will gain experience from us so they aren’t totally new to this level when it comes in.”