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Tiger boys enter season with chance to control own destiny
Chris Southcott noticed something different during the pre-season this year compared to years past: his team has actually bonded.
“I keep pressing upon the kids that the group we have right now, as far as a close knight group that likes being around each other, we don’t have anybody that is standoffish with the group,” said the Brentsville District boys’ varsity coach.
Potentially, that may mean Southcott will be working with a cohesive bunch who will buy into his philosophies rather than managing egos.
“It’s the first group in a few years that, man for man down the line, we have that with,” he said.
Southcott is certainly a known commodity around the Nokesville campus – shirts reading “Southcott’s soldiers” are speckled throughout in the stands at Tiger home games – but his coaching style is not a tour-de-force. He would rather allow his boys to run their own offensive set ups because, as he puts it, it’s their team; not his.
“The player with the ball is basically free to make the decision he wants to make with the basketball and everyone around him is going to act in accordance to what he wants to do with the basketball,” said Southcott.
This year is no exception though the offensive design is different.
“It’s an open-set multi-option offense,” said the coach. “It isn’t a set pattern, it isn’t something, you know, we have to run through this, run through that.”
Brentsville’s basic goal this year will be getting the ball down low as frequently as possible. At least three players are 6-foot-5 or high, including two football player playing forward-center positions: 6-foot-7 Ben Hilsen, who returns to the court after sitting out last year while recovering from surgery, and 6-foot-6 Travis Garret.
Both are seniors and, along with the team’s go-to forward Robbie Studds, will provide the Tigers with plenty of rebound and put-back potential in the paint. But Brentsville has another built-in advantage as even guards like Ed Horton are big enough to attack the basket.
“The kid is a man-child. He’s physically just rock solid,” said Southcott of Horton, who is set to start the season coming in off the bench.
Studds will be the main focus however for the Brentsville offense. Since the end of the 2007-08 season, the senior forward has developed a better 15-foot jump shot in addition to his inside game.
“…We want to be able to shoot that medium-range jump shot,” said the coach. “And I don’t think it was so much that he couldn’t shoot it last year. I think he was afraid to. I think he didn’t have the confidence to.”
What Southcott wants the most though is harnessing a work ethic within his players that allows them to stay competitive for 32 minutes so they can consistently take advantage of the opportunities their big men should create.
“Are they working hard enough? Are we really grasping the offense we’re putting in, you know?” he asked.
After all, it’s not what Southcott says or does at the end of the day that determines the outcome of games.
“The kids are the ones playing on the floor. They’re the ones who control the game. We’ve got to let them be the ones to make the decisions out there,” he said.
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