EAHS boys basketball preview

Head Coach: Kevin Dolan, second season.

2007-2008 Record: 17-13 overall, 9-7 Section Two. Lost to Columbia 61-52 in Lancaster-Lebanon League playoffs. Beat Gettysburg 60-45 in District Three tournament play-in round. Beat Cedar Crest 65-57 in first round of District Three playoffs. Beat Mechanicsburg 67-53 in District Three quarterfinals. Lost to Reading 61-38 in District Three semifinals. Lost to Harrisburg 52-41 in District Three consolations. Lost to Penn Wood 62-46 in first round of PIAA state playoffs (first state playoff appearance in program history).

Key Returners: Quinn Cozzens, senior, captain, G; Chad Styer, senior, F; Kyle McNeil, senior, F; Jordan Hoover, senior, G; James Bard, senior, F; Bradley Garber, junior, F.
The Bears return three starters from last year’s state playoff qualifying team – Cozzens, Styer and McNeil – to lead this year’s group. All of these players saw time last year at the varsity level, especially Cozzens, Styer, McNeil and Garber, and all made some sort of significant contribution at some point in the regular season and playoffs. They’ve also developed a cohesiveness that is evident on the court, and will go a long way in helping them get where they want to go.

“They’re a group that has played together for a lot of years and they have a lot of varsity experience,” said Dolan. “So they should know how to handle game situations and the experience should help them.”

The leader of the bunch is Cozzens, who is one of the best all-around players on the team. There isn’t much he can’t do on the court – score, rebound, pass, defend, etc. – and he has the ability to put the team on his back and carry them for stretches.

“We look to all of the seniors for leadership, but especially from Quinn as the captain,” Dolan said. “Quinn’s a real heady player. He does a lot of things well and really understands the game of basketball and understands situational basketball. He gives us a lot of leadership on and off the court.”

Styer led the team in 3-pointers made last year and is one of E-town’s best shooters. But Styer spent the summer refining the rest of this game so that he can help the Bears everywhere. But don’t fret E-town fans, he still has that smooth outside stroke.

“Chad’s one of our better shooters and someone who has worked hard on other parts of his game to make sure that, if he’s having a tough night shooting, he can contribute something else,” said Dolan. “I’m really pleased with the progress that he’s made in that area.”

McNeil is the third of the Bears’ returning starters, and he’ll be heading back to his familiar place down low on the blocks. McNeil is a relentless rebounder, which will help E-town keep offensive possessions alive. But what will separate him from most forwards is his strength. He’s gotten bigger and stronger since last year, and that should translate into more rebounds and blocks and more points for him. Watch for McNeil to take the ball to the basket aggressively and power his way to double digit points very often. Last season, he was a bit passive on offense, something that Dolan said he has worked on.

“He’s gotten stronger and tougher. We just need to get a little bit more offensive production from him and I expect that. He’s been taking the ball to the basket much better and he’s been establishing himself much better on the post, and that will do nothing but help our offense,” said Dolan.

Garber didn’t start last year, but did play a lot of minutes off of the bench and really gave the Bears another quality presence in the paint. He will be E-town’s main inside guy this year as a junior. He won’t be as big as every other team’s big man, but he will be quicker and more athletic than just about all of them. He is also a scrappy player who will battle for rebounds and make the aggressive kinds of plays that don’t show up in the box score but help teams win.

“He got some good varsity minutes at the end of the year (last season) and he took advantage of that and showed what he can do,” said Dolan. “We’re looking for some good things from him. He’s a little undersized, but he’ll be one of the quicker big guys in the league.”

Hoover didn’t see much court time, but he showed what he was capable of in the postseason with a great game against Harrisburg in the District Three consolation round. His role will be increased this year, and the Bears will be getting a player with nonstop energy and a good outside shooting touch on both ends of the floor.

“We hope to build on the experience Jordan got last year,” Dolan said. ‘He brings a lot of energy and he’s one of the hardest workers on the team. He plays extremely good defense for us and can shoot it on the offensive end.”

Bard was also mainly a reserve last year, but he brings more depth into the frontcourt and an excellent work ethic and attitude to the Bears’ team.

“James is a little bit of an undersized inside player, but he has real good footwork. He thinks well and does a lot of good things. He also worked hard in the offseason on certain parts of his game,” Dolan said.

Key Newcomers: Andrew Placeres, senior, G; Jeremi Jones, senior, G; Jared Risser, senior, G; Adam Muniz, senior, G.
The Bears’ backcourt gets even deeper with the addition of these four players, all of whom are expected to see time this year and should make significant contributions to the team.

Placeres is a transfer student from Middletown. The Blue Raiders played against the Bears last year, which helped the E-town players and coaches get acquainted with his playing style. He will likely handle the bulk of the point guard duties for the Bears this season, but he’s also very fast and can shoot from just about anywhere on the court. Placeres has been with E-town since the summer, working out with the team. That should help alleviate the adjustment period of playing together.

“Andrew has a real long shooting range, and we’ll look to him and distribute the ball and get us up and down the court as fast as we can get there,” said Dolan.

Jones is another transfer student, coming over to E-town after three years of playing at Mount Calvary Christian School, where he scored more than 1,200 points at the varsity level. Jones is a very good athlete who can do just about anything on the court and gives E-town another explosive backcourt player. In the fall, Jones played football for E-town, which took away from his time with the basketball team, but Dolan said that both Jones and the rest of the players are getting adjusted to having him very quickly.

“Jeremi can score from anywhere. He can shoot it or he can take the ball to the basket. He’s only been with us for about two weeks and we’ve really been impressed with what he’s done both offensively and defensively. He knows the game,” Dolan said.

Risser played JV last year and has worked his way up to the varsity team by putting in a lot of work over the summer. His familiarity with E-town’s coaching philosophies and strategies will help him tremendously this year. He is also a good shooter.

Muniz will be a bit of an x-factor this year for E-town. He missed last season with a bad knee, but could possibly be the best athlete on the team. He brings a tremendous amount of quickness to an already athletic roster.

“He may be the quickest guy on the team and may be the guy with the best leaping ability that we have,” Dolan said.

Key Losses: Scott Bilheimer, G; Tilghman Grandstaff, F; Jordan Hallman, G; Nate Koach, C; Nate McCurdy, G; Mike O’Shea, G; Weston Parrett, G.
The Bears lost a lot of talent and leadership to graduation. Both Hallman and Koach were starters last year for E-town. Hallman gave the Bears a solid point guard and a lot of team speed. And Koach was arguably one of the best centers in the league. He was one of the team’s leading scorers last year and was a great rebounder and shot blocker. But one of the ways Koach’s impact will be felt this year is the way he tutored Garber.

“I think Nate helped Bradley in a lot of ways. First of all, they play the same type of game. They’re very athletic and they run very well. The best way he helped Bradley is that he showed him how an athletic big man can play,” said Dolan.

Bilheimer, Grandstaff, McCurdy, O’Shea and Parrett all made plays on the court coming mainly off the bench, but their departure will be felt largely in the places fans don’t see – in the locker room and at practice. They were all team-first guys and worked very hard to help the team however they could. Their attitudes went a long way in helping the Bears become such a close team, and that cohesiveness translated to on-court success.

But the biggest thing that this group did, and something that Dolan hopes they passed along to the returning players, is that they learned how to win. Last year’s team got off to a slow start, but they clicked midseason and closed the regular season by winning 12 of their last 14, including eight in a row heading into the league playoffs. Coming together and pulling off that many wins in the second half of the season is something coaches can’t teach, but it could be something these players taught this year’s group.

“I think they taught them how to win. We had to learn how to win and I think they did it. Our coaching staff didn’t teach them how to win, they learned,” said Dolan. “And I think the guys this year saw that last year and now they know how to win.”

Strengths: Experience, backcourt depth.
Many of these Bears are playoff tested. They’ve been to the league playoffs. They were among the last four teams standing in District Three. And they made it through to the state playoffs. Along the way, they played in just about every kind of game imaginable – blowouts, tight games decided in the fourth quarter, physical games, shootouts, you name it. And those experiences are another thing that can’t be taught. There won’t be many situations this year that Cozzens, Styer, McNeil and company haven’t seen before.

But what might make them even tougher to handle this season is the depth of the backcourt. The Bears have at least six guards that can play well at any point in the game. You can’t always rely on the same player or two to have big games every night, so having talent that can step up in the case of foul trouble, subpar shooting nights or injury is a luxury E-town has. And their guards are versatile. They can shoot from the outside, take the ball to the basket, handle a press and play good defense. The Bears’ backcourt strength will be something that carries them all season long.

Weaknesses: Inside depth, rebounding.
E-town doesn’t have a lot of height (although most of their roster is six-foot or taller) and, outside of Garber and McNeil, don’t have a lot of crunch-time inside players. It’s not necessarily a huge concern for E-town or something that will hold them back in a lot of games, it just means that the Bears will have to work a little harder at doing the little things inside, like blocking shots, taking charges and rebounding.

Last year, E-town had Koach to put in the paint and battle with teams that had centers taller than 6-4.

This year, however, the Bears will have to make up for that lack of size with hustle, determination and proper fundamentals when it comes to playing post-up defense and boxing out. In most instances, their ability to spread the floor and get up and down on defense will make up for this, but keeping McNeil and Garber healthy and out of foul trouble will be important for when the Bears need to bang bodies under the basket.

Outlook: E-town isn’t going to sneak up on anyone this season. The Bears have a bullseye on their backs after going to states last year, and they know it.

“They know what the league’s like. I think (last year) puts a bullseye on our backs, and it’ll be interesting to see how we react to that,” said Dolan.

Bullseye or no bullseye, the Bears have a ton of talent. They return three bonafide starters (Cozzens, Styer and McNeil) and three more players that will fill the stat sheets (Garber, Placeres and Jones). Not only does this group have the ability to pick up where last year’s team left off, but it has bought into Dolan and his staff and you’ll see the Bears play hard for four straight quarters every single game. This is an unselfish group that cares more about wins than it does stats, and one that is getting more and more comfortable with the two newest faces (Jones and Placeres) with each practice.

“I think our chemistry is OK with Andrew because he was with us all summer. it might take an adjustment with Jeremi, but I don’t think it will be much of one because of the type of player Jeremi is,” said Dolan. “The tougher thing is to find good, quality minutes for all of these guys because we’ve got more than five guys that we could consider starters.”

E-town’s 2-7 start last year may actually be a blessing in disguise for this year’s team. They now know how tough it is to get to the postseason if you can’t come out of the gates running and that there isn’t much time in the world of high school basketball to get back on track.

“I think they understand more the urgency and the idea that basketball season is really compressed. They understand that they’ve got to come out and be ready to go right away,” said Dolan.

Of course, these Bears don’t want to live off of last year’s legacy.

They want to make their own mark on the program and all of the piece are in place for another strong campaign – leadership, talent on both ends of the floor and, perhaps most importantly, a group of players that puts the team before themselves.

“This team has the talent and experience to play some good basketball,” Dolan said. “I expect us to go out there and compete every game. I think these guys understand what it takes to do that and if they do, we’ll be fine.”

All that is left is to, once again, prove it on the court.