EV coach building team’s confidence
Jason Wilson has a simple message for his East Valley boys basketball team that he repeats daily.
“I keep telling them, ‘I believe in you,’ ” Wilson said. “I really do. I believe this team can win every time they step on a basketball court. It may take some extraordinary circumstances to make that happen. But I always believe we have a chance.”
Wilson is making progress getting his team to hold the same belief for themselves. In the Great Northern League, that’s solid progress.
The GNL is a numbers game – or perhaps it’s more of a lack-of-numbers game.
The GNL has just five teams: East Valley, West Valley, Cheney, Pullman and Clarkston. A league that small has a built-in scheduling problem. A home-and-home series of league games only fills out eight games on a 20-game season schedule, and finding enough teams to fill 12 nonleague games could be considered near impossible.
So the GNL takes the extraordinary step of having its member teams play each other three times. Every year, the teams play two home games against some teams, two road games against some others. The next year, the roles are reversed.
This is East Valley’s year to play two home games with Clarkston (11-0, 4-0), the undefeated defending state Class 2A champion, but travel for two games at Pullman, which is also a top 10 ranked team.
It’s not a surprise that both of the Knights’ league losses through the first four league games have come against the Greyhounds and the Bantams.
Tuesday night, EV gave a strong account of itself at Clarkston, leading by three points after one quarter, 21-18, and trailing by a single point at intermission, 32-31.
But the undefeated and defending state Class 2A state champion Bantams came out for the third quarter and outscored the Knights by 15 points. Clarkston won the game, 76-57.
“Clarkston has two exceptional guards in Jett Sobotta and Trevon Allen,” Wilson said. “In the first half our defensive intensity was pretty good. Our post, Eli Holecek, scored 10 of his 14 points in the first quarter and we got off to a good start.
“But Clarkston came out pretty aggressive in the second half and we weren’t quite as intense on defense. They were aggressive, they attacked us off the bounce and we got caught on a few rotations.”
For EV, this week should be considered Hell Week.
“This is a really tough week for us,” Wilson said. “We have Clarkston, we play Pullman Thursday, and Saturday against Cheney. Those are three tough games. But I know that this group of guys will be back in the gym ready to get to work and get ready for their next game. These guys all know each other very well, they like each other, and they all care about each other.”
The Knights (7-5, 2-2) are off to a solid start. They dropped two games to start the season that the coach believes they should have won to Class 1A teams Lakeside and Freeman.
Coming into this week three tough games East Valley pulled out a hard-fought, 52-49 win over West Valley in the annual Golden Throne game.
Dante Clayton scored 9 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the game and DeVonte Gorman scored 13 points, grabbed six rebounds and made five assists.
“We don’t have problems scoring,” Wilson said. “We have three guys (Holecek, Gorman and Clayton) who are each scoring right at 11 points per game. Our challenge is doing the things we can control each and every game we play. Having confidence, playing defense and rebounding. The kinds of things that we can do whether we score or not.”
Those are the things Wilson wants to see his team weave into the fabric of the program.
“This program doesn’t have a deep history to draw from,” he said. “I think there’s been maybe one regional tournament appearance anyone can even remember. We need to get away from that habit of thinking that when things start to go bad that it’s just the way things are supposed to go. That’s what we’re trying to change.”