Bedford North Lawrence boys basketball gets 2021-22 season started
BEDFORD — Bedford North Lawrence boys basketball coach Jeff Hein took a look at the 43 players who came to Monday's opening day of practice for the IHSAA's 2021-22 season, and he saw the most painful part of coaching: He's going to have to make cuts.
Yet, that isn't what he saw first. Hein is far too positive a person for that to be his first impression.
No, his first thoughts were that the present-day outlook had brightened with the influx of football players that included his two returning starter colts, Colton Staggs and Colten Leach (coming back from his second knee injury and surgery and likely to miss a month, though he has defied those odds before), along with Kaedyn Bennett, Dylan Nikirk, Jett Jones and others.
He also saw a bright future for the program because 23 of those players were freshmen, who put a shine on the second half practice with spirited competition and execution that belied their age.
Competition will be keen
In fact competition is the name of game for the first few days as Hein and his staff (intact from last season) go through the process of culling the numbers down to a manageable roster.
"I thought the first day went well," Hein said. "We had 22 at varsity practice, with a couple of the freshmen coming up to even out the numbers there. I'm really happy with the turnout and the kids worked hard and competed hard knowing that we have to make some tough decisions in a couple of days.
"The football kids came in, I think 14 of them total, and I could see a big difference in the energy level of practice over what we'd seen in open gym. I've seen a big jump in how competitive they are and the intensity level.
"We have 43 players competing for 37 spots (between varsity, JV and freshman teams), and it's always a tough part of this to make cuts, but a few will be necessary with this many kids. It won't be easy because there were a lot of good players out there, but that's a good thing. It's great to have the numbers and the competition that comes with it, which is always good for a team."
Hein having to fill in the blanks
The coach, who is 324-227 heading into his 25th season overall and 29-21 in his two years with BNL, has some damage control to do early. Hein has to replace three graduated starters in Kooper Staley, Jackson Miracle and Ben Cosner, and a frequent starter in Aden Pemberton. He's also unsure when Leach, who averaged a team-best 13.6 ppg last year and was first-team All-HHC, will be available.
Staggs looks to be the lone returning starter back from a 14-11 sectional-finalist team when the season starts, but again the competition will come in handy as Hein looks for others to step into the breach and take advantage of opportunities.
Hein's early observations will come through drills and effort exerted in conditioning.
"We did a lot of drills for ballhandling, and stuck to a lot of fundamentals on the first day," he said. "We played some 1-on-1 and did some 4-on-4 stuff. We didn't get into any 5-on-5 yet.
"We'll break some things down more and once we make our decisions on who is staying we'll start getting into 5-on-5 games and see how things unfold from there. We're looking for answers to some questions.
"We're not real big, and a lot of the guys aren't real quick. We're also young, with only two seniors (nine juniors and nine sophomores), but we shoot the ball well and I liked what I saw with the effort and energy on opening day.
"We've won quite a few games the last two years by playing hard at the defensive end (the Stars allowed just 51 ppg last season), taking pretty good care of the ball, and playing together and for each other."
Rookies sharp in high school debut
Hein was also encouraged by the freshman practice.
"Obviously, there were a lot of kids out there for that practice, and I was pretty impressed by the skill level and execution for a young group," he said. "You can see that they've been able to play a lot of basketball at the middle school level and they seemed to have strong skills and a good knowledge of the game.
"It didn't look like a typical freshman practice, and it was great to see how hard they played and how tough the competition was with those kids. It looks like some good things are coming if they continue to work hard and get better."
The Stars will host their annual Soap & Towel intrasquad scrimmage Monday at 6 p.m., and then play at Martinsville in the IHSAA preseason scrimmage on Friday, Nov. 19. BNL opens the regular season on Tuesday, Nov. 23 at Bloomington North.
Contact Times-Mail Sports Writer Jeff Bartlett at jeffb@tmnews.com, or on Twitter @jeffbtmnews.
This article originally appeared on The Times-Mail: Bedford NL holds first practice of 2021-22 IHSAA basketball season
