After fielding a competitive team in 2020, PikeView took its licks last season, falling to eventual Class AAA runner-up Shady Spring in the sectional opener.
Now head coach Colton Thompson is hoping the offseason did his returning players some good and that his talented freshman group can contribute from the jump.
“We’ve got some kids who got better over the summer,” Thompson said. “Jerrad Vestal is back and David Thomas. We’ve got some freshmen in this class and some sophomores who are going to hopefully contribute early in the year.”
With a younger group Thompson sees positives and negatives.
“I think our depth is going to be a strength for us and our defensive intensity,” Thompson said. “I think inexperience with some guys who haven’t seen a lot of varsity time yet will hurt and we’ll probably have a lot of growing pains early in the year but it’s definitely something you can overcome.”
Thompson’s also not trying to overwhelm his players with one singular goal of competing for state championship. He wants to bring his younger group along slowly.
“It’s one of those things where you just break the season up in to chunks and you’re playing in four and five-game segments with many goals along the way,” Thompson said. “You try to overcome some of those early season obstacles and get better come February and March and hope to get hot.”
In his returners, Thompson has seen noticeable improvement.
“I think the defensive knowledge and defensive technique across the board has Improved,” Thompson said. “We spent all of the summer playing in tournaments and summer leagues and just playing that hard man-to-man and developing and growing that and you’re starting to see it click. We watch film and can see rotations that hadn’t been there with the second and third help. We’ve had a couple individual players who have also had big summers also and are going to contribute. Brett Samosky as a sophomore last year didn’t get a lot of varsity minutes but he’s really worked hard in the offseason and will be a guard that contributes a lot for us.”
With a younger group comes keeping their confidence in tact. Learning how to handle success and losing will both be lessons the Panthers need to apply.
“It think for this group our big thing early on is going to be surviving the ebbs and flows of a game,” Thompson said. “I think there’s a lot of intensity when things are going good but we’ve got some inexperienced guys and some young guys that haven’t gone through that. The other team making a run in the fourth or adversity on the road, I think some of that can be overcome with a little experience.”
One newcomer Thompson expects to contribute throughout the season is freshman Zayden Neely. His size and game figure to factor in well with a PikeView team that anticipates having a length advantage.
“He’s definitely a big kid and a legit 6-foot-3 and change, pushing 6-foot-4,” Thompson said of Neely.”He’s big and he’s played a ton. He rises to the challenge and has a really nice midrange jumpsuit with touch in the paint. But he’s one of those guys that once he adjusts to the speed of varsity basketball he’s going to be a beast people are going to talk about but that freshman class has some pieces that will contribute early and develop over the next few years but Zayden will change a lot over the year.
“He’s already long and we have a lot of kids like that. You stretch us out in warmups and we’re going to be one of the better looking teams you see in the area as far as length. I think the big thing for some of these guys is growing into that length and being comfortable in it and getting out of that awkward growth stage and developing into that next level basketball player.”
