Boys Basketball Tryouts

Story and Photo by Abby Langle – Editor-in-Chief

  Fall sports are ending which means winter sports are just around the corner. Many sports are starting as soon as November 1st and Boys Basketball is one of them.

   The tryout process for any sport can be hard and scary for some. It often involves many long days of hard work and having to wait and see where you end up.

   “Tryouts are about a week long. A first cut after three practices and a final cut at the end of the week after five or six total practices. During tryouts, we are measuring basketball skill, athletic ability and some intangibles like grades, effort, attitude, reliability, coachability, how they treat their teammates. This year is a little different with football potentially playing deep into November, we might need to extend tryouts for a couple extra weeks. Since football players can’t try out until after football season,” Michael Hilbert, head varsity basketball coach, said.  

   With a possible change to tryout length this year, it will be interesting to see how many boys try out.

   “We usually have 75 to 80 players tryout.  We keep between 45 and 50 on five teams. Two Freshman teams, a Sophomore team, a JV and a varsity team,” Hilbert said.

   Predicting how the season is going to go can vary every year. New groups of boys show out every year and seniors leave after graduation. When coach Hilbert was asked how he believed the season was going to look, he was nothing but optimistic.

   “I will have a better idea after three weeks of practice and a couple of games. Right now, I am really excited and my expectations are extremely high. I think our guys will show up, work hard and be a really good high school basketball team,” Hilbert said. 

   Once the team is formed they will not have much time before the season starts. The quest for a title is long and it starts next week with tryouts. The team’s first game of the season is November 18 against Liberty High School.