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Red Devils have potential offensively, but will be tested on D vs. Eagles
Chaffee High School boy’s basketball coach Josh Govreau believes in his team’s potential offensively after the Red Devils have gotten off to a nice 2-1 start this season. However, defense is going to be at the forefront of focus tonight at 7:30 p.m. when Chaffee visits East Prairie (2-0), which is averaging 84 points per game so far.
“This year,” Govreau said recently, “we have a lot of kids who can score. The last couple of years, we’ve been just so limited with kids who can create shots and hit shots.”
The Red Devils finished third in the Oran Invitational Tournament over the weekend with wins over Scott County Central (69-64) and Westwood Baptist (48-37) and a loss in the semifinals to eventual tournament champion Bell City (52-43).
In some ways, Chaffee played its best game in the finale, which shows that this (very) young team should improve with each outing this season.
“We start three sophomores,” Govreau said, “and have five on the roster. They are going to play hard, but the physicality at the varsity level is different than (junior varsity), and they are getting used to that.”
Against Westwood Baptist, Chaffee buried seven 3-pointers (to Govreau’s point that this team can shoot), and had seven different players produce offensively. Three Red Devils scored 10 points apiece (sophomore Nolan Fowler, senior Devin Best, and senior Easton Fowler) while sophomore center Rolen Reischman added seven points in the win.
“We at least had a focus of trying to get the ball inside,” Govreau said of the win over the Eagles. “Whether that was getting into the post with the pass or even getting some penetration.
“We need to live through Rolen Reischman at times and at least get him touches. He is going to make the right play whether that is kicking it out or scoring it.”
In the loss to the Cubs, Govreau felt his team didn’t handle Bell City’s physicality well, but his team did have eight guys produce offensively.
“In the end,” Govreau said, “we’ll be a team who can put up some points.”
Chaffee had length in the past couple of seasons, but is more guard-oriented this year, which has resulted in the Red Devils tweaking some schemes offensively.
“We try to spread the floor a little bit more,” Govreau said of his offensive philosophy. “We do some dribble-weave, just because we have guys who can create.
“Last year, we had so much size that we tried to play inside more. We didn’t have as many people who could create off the dribble on offense. This year, we may have three or four guards who can create some offense for us.”