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GCHS boys impressive in Colorado
Published 6/30/2009 in Sports : GCHS
By JASON ELMQUIST
Competing with teams from as far away as Illinois, Wyoming and Arkansas — among over 40 teams from Colorado — the Garden City boys basketball team held its own as the lone Kansas representative at the Gold Crown High School Summer Team Camp in Denver over the weekend.
"There's good competition and we know what it's like," GCHS coach Jeff Tanner said. "And that's why we go out there. You see teams from everywhere and see all different styles and all different calibers."
Of the 32 teams competing in the Division I group, the Garden City varsity squad took third. Meanwhile, the junior varsity and freshmen groups each took fourth in their divisions.
"It was a very good weekend," Tanner said. "I would say, of all the times that we've been going out there, this was probably the best weekend we've ever had. It's been a while since we've had a varsity team do that well and then all three teams make championship brackets — which we've never done. It was a pretty outstanding weekend."
Tanner said winning wasn't the most important thing heading to Denver — though the impressive finishes were more than welcomed.
"It's a great team building experience as well," Tanner said. "Regardless of the basketball, it's more than just that. It's a good team builder."
While the varsity had the best finish of the bunch, Tanner was also quite impressed with how the younger kids performed in Colorado.
"The thing that was nice was we talked about with our kids is that we're finally starting to see some competition for spots on all three teams," Tanner said. "There's a lot of kids in the program that know they can play and those that keep working and improve obviously will reap the benefits. At every level you see kids that have the ability and bring something to the table as far as helping the team."
But regardless of the weekend's performance, Tanner said he wants his players to understand that this weekend is meaningless come the start of the high school season.
"The thing that we've got to understand is that in the overall scheme of things, we really haven't accomplished anything yet," Tanner said. "That remains ahead of us and we've got to use this as a motivating factor. We've got to use this as motivation to get into the gym even on days we don't want to. And we've got to do this as a group, not as individuals. One or two kids doing that isn't going to be enough. Our conference and our schedule are both too tough to try to get by on just a couple of kids who know how to play.
"So if we continue to work and get the shots up and continue to play together and be competitive in our pickup games and get in the weight room, all those things will factor into any success we'll have this winter."
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