2009-10 Advance Boys Basketball Preview

For the Advance boys basketball team, there is learning to play great defense and then there is everything else.

Second-year coach Josh Dowdy has made it clear to his team that its focus should be on the defensive end of the court.

"It's a theme right now," Dowdy said. "I don't know how good we're going to be early on offen sively, but we're going to learn to move our feet right now."

It is a theme that starts the moment practice begins for the Hornets.

"We want to begin our practices with good defensive slides instead of shooting the basket ball," Dowdy said. "We want to have that mentality. Anyone can go in and the first thing they do is pick up a basketball and start shooting. But we want to come into the gym and work on the defensive stance and defensive slides. That's kind of our mindset right now."

Three starters are gone from a veteran Advance team that made it to the district championship game a season ago. Three seniors -- Luke Steil, Brad Steil and Matt Ware -- who saw plenty of varsity playing time last season and five juniors who contributed to an 18-3 junior varsity season will share most of the playing time this season.

Juniors Dylan Dunivan, Grant Gray and Darren VanGennip all contributed some at the varsity level last season, something Dowdy said should help them this season.

"I feel like this team can grow much more than the team I had last year," Dowdy said. "I had pri marily seniors last year and I had some juniors help out, but I feel like with the inexperience from us not playing together as a team like the group last year for an extended amount of time, I think we have more room for growth and that's going to be exciting to watch."

The Hornets also will be helped by the fact that they came into the season knowing what to expect from Dowdy.

"A year obviously helps," Dowdy said. "Right now the kids are doing everything we ask them to do and I can't expect much more than that from a coaching standpoint. Yeah, they're still learning my system, but at the same time they're catching on and adapting real well right now."

He expects they'll catch on in plenty of time for postseason play.

"I feel like these kids, if they continue to work, can definitely be in that same position at the end of the year this year as we were last year and quite possibly moving on further," Dowdy said before pausing, "if we think about defense first."

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Coach: Josh Dowdy, second season

Last season's record: 22-7

Returning starters: Luke Steil, sr.; Brad Steil, sr.

Other key players: Matt Ware, sr.; Dylan Dunivan, jr.; Grant Gray, jr.; Darren VanGennip, jr.; John Middleton, jr.; Hunter Shoemaker, jr.