The Garden City Telegram
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Boys basketball: Buffs have little height and little experience, and plenty of injuries
Published 12/4/2008 in Special Sections : GCHS
By JASON ELMQUIST
It's just bound to happen. No matter what, a year comes that a team has to go through it. The youth movement.
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Brad Nading/Telegram — Garden City High School's Michael Lefort, left, goes up for a shot in the lane as Liberal's Eric Brown defends during a game last season at The Garden.
That's where Garden City High School boys basketball coach Jeff Tanner currently finds himself. A young team with a lot to offer, but with little experience.
"I love these kinds of years," Tanner conceded. "We really have so many question marks and it all comes out in the wash. It's a performance-based business and whichever of the kids perform will get a majority of the minutes -- and that's what I think everybody wants."
The Buffs' leading scorer and their leading rebounder from last year graduated, opening spots in the starting lineup. The Buffs finished 12-9.
"You hope that really provides a lot of motivation for a lot of the kids because there's a lot of minutes to be had," Tanner said. "Not only because of graduation, but because of injuries. And I think that does help make our practices pretty competitive. Some people have started here in the last three or four practices coming around to where they're trying to maybe be one of them that steps up into those positions."
One of the main injuries is senior guard Michael Lefort, who is the highest returning scorer with just 5.8 points per game a year ago. Lefort has been rehabbing the last six months from a knee injury suffered at a summer basketball camp.
"It's kind of frustrating just to watch, but I still do my own thing on the sideline," Lefort said. "I shoot, still work on my ball handling moves and just do as much as I can. I do my leg workouts everyday so I can come back. I'm just ready to play again, to be honest. I hate not practicing."
Lefort has also been doing a little bit of scouting during his time on the sideline.
"Aydan Kinney has actually been going really hard. I've never seen him go that hard before, to be honest," Lefort said. "He's diving all over the floor and I never saw him do that last year. There's actually been a lot of hustling going on. Patrick Garcia and Cody Bernbeck. Those two are something. I'd trust Cody with the game-winning shot."
Garcia and Bernbeck are also a couple of guards that Lefort said he's looking forward to being on the harwood with.
"It'd be good if I came back and had Cody out there with me. We'd have two shooters to spread it around the arc," Lefort said. "They (opposing defenses) couldn't guard us both and then we'd have an open post. Patrick Garcia is really good at penetrating and so is Nathan Brungardt, so our offense could be pretty good this year. We've just got to work even harder on defense."
With Lefort still on the mend and senior guard Patrick Calzonetti looking to be out until January, Tanner said he's is seeing those players like Bernbeck, Garcia and Brungardt showing their stuff in practice in hopes of getting playing time.
"All of them were role players last year and now they want to be the go-to guys," Tanner said. "Some of them have worked awfully hard in the off-season to put themselves in a position to be the go-to guy at their position. So they've shown what we thought they'd bring to the table."
With Bernbeck, Garcia, Burngardt and eventually Lefort and Calzonetti, the outside shooting may be there -- and may have to be there -- because height down low is not really the team's forte this year.
"No it's not. That presents some challenges, but it also presents some opportunities," Tanner said of his team's lack of size. "We're going to try to get out and move. If you shoot the ball and take care of the ball and play unbelievable defense then it doesn't really matter how big you are. It's when your on-ball defense isn't there or you're not denying very well down low that your size can just absolutely hurt you. We want to do things right that can negate that."
The top-three players for GCHS when it comes to height are juniors Chris Ruiz at 6-3 and Chris Prentice at 6-4 along with 6-4 sophomore Keith Curran, who is also recovering from surgery.
"We've got a lot of question marks and you don't get them all answered in practices," Tanner said. "You've got to get in those game situations with the pressure on and see who reacts and who doesn't. That's what we're looking for. We try to put them in as many competitive situations and stressful situations that we can in practice to try to simulate that -- but you can't always totally simulate it -- to try to get an idea of who it's going to be."
Coach: Jeff Tanner (11th year)
Roster: Manual Guzman, 6-4, Sr.; Cody Bernbeck, 6-1, So.; Dion Scott, 5-8, Sr.; Illich Palacios, 6-0, Sr.; Michael Lefort, 6-2, Sr.; Quentin Taylor, 5-10, Jr.; Nathan Brungardt, 6-0, Sr.; Ray Casanova, 6-2, Sr.; Patrick Garcia, 6-1, Jr.; Chris Ruiz, 6-3, Jr.; Aydan Kinney, 6-0, Jr.; Chris Prentice, 6-4, Jr.; Patrick Calzonetti, 6-0, Sr.; Keith Curran, 6-4, So.; Ali Muhammad, 6-0, Sr.
SCHEDULE
Dec. 4-6-Hays City Shoot-Out; Dec. 12-13-Elk City (Okla.) Festival; Jan. 9-GREAT BEND; Jan. 10-Dodge City; Jan. 13-Liberal; Jan. 22-24-Valley Center Tournament; Jan. 30-Ulysses; Feb. 6-Hays; Feb. 7-DERBY; Feb. 10-COLBY; Feb. 13-Great Bend; Feb. 14-Guymon; Feb. 17-DODGE CITY; Feb. 20-HAYS; Feb. 24-LIBERAL.
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