Young Pirates get ready for the second half of season after 'turbulent' first half

The Polson Pirates boys basketball team experienced the ups and down typically associated with having a younger team as they concluded the first half of the season with an 80-53 conference loss to Browning.

Pirates coach Randy Kelley said he felt his young team learned a significant amount during the first half of the season. During the break, his team will have an opportunity to work on specific areas of their game to improve headed into the second half against Ronan and Columbia Falls on Jan 5 and Jan. 6.

“I thought we did well in the first few weeks and then we took a step back last week as far as some of our personnel,” Kelley said. “Our younger kids just need to get a little more confidence. We haven’t shot the ball very well from beyond the 3-point line and we are struggling a little bit with our turnovers. That is something (during the break) that we will have to work on and clean up.”

The Pirates first half was up-and-down but Kelley said he felt his team has made strides since the start the start of the season.

“I feel like we’ve done well,” Kelley said. “We are still learning some things and growing as a team. We have a long way to go to progress.”

One area that Kelley is going to focus on as the team prepares to enter the break is shooting.

“We are rushing our shots a lot and that is mostly because we don’t players that have a lot of experience,” Kelley said. “Right now, we are shooting about 20 percent and that is not going to get it done. We have to shoot better from beyond-the-arc and that is something that we’ve been working on doing. Right now, we have 20 turnovers and last night we had eight turnovers. That is too many turnovers in a game right now and that is not where we need to be with ball security.”

Kelley feels shooting accuracy is as simple as his team “shooting with confidence.”

“After the Browning game, we talked about what we need to do in order to improve because we just aren’t shooting the basketball with confidence,” Kelley said. “That is something that has to come along in order to be where we need to be. We have to work on some stuff and right now our main issue is shooting.”

An area Kelley said he felt his team has excelled in during the game is on defense. The Pirates defeated conference opponent Whitefish 57-26 by being able to generate points in transition.

“We are going to play well defensively and we are going to have to come up with a scheme for them,” Kelley said. “We have to be able to take care of the ball, put an emphasis on defense and hopefully, the shooting will take care of itself.”

Another area the Pirates will continue to work on is shooting free throws. Polson has missed a lot of early-season scoring opportunities and they hope to improve in this fundamental area as their season progresses.