Sports

Northern Region Boys Basketball Preview - Patriot District

Woodson, TC Williams, Annandale, West Potomac lead loaded district

In advance of the 2010-11 boys baskeball season, we have put together a comprehensive preview for the Northern Reigon. Below, you will find previews for all eight Patriot District teams, beginning with your Lake Braddock Bruins and West Springfield Spartans. Please click on the approporiate link for the Concorde, Liberty and National districts.

Lake Braddock Bruins

Within any athletic program, be it at the high school or college level, success for one is seen as success for all. That is to say, the baseball team is happy to see the soccer team succeed.

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Of course, in high school, prolonged success can cause one sport to bleed into the next season. With the Lake Braddock football team winning its second-straight Division 6 Northern Region championship, Bruin basketball Coach Brian Metress has yet to see the actual team he will have this season.

"We really haven't gotten a full contingent going," Metress said. "We're nowhere near figuring out who's who."

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Metress indicated he'd be keeping two to five players from the football team, including Chris Williams and Greg Jones. Matt Zanellato played basketball while at Robinson, but after receiving a scholarship offer for football from Penn State, he could forgo his senior year of basketball.

"You can't do everything," Metress said of missing some of his players. "We're still working on putting in offenses and defenses, but we're keeping a cautious eye because we're going to be getting some guys here. We can't have them come out of football and go, 'This is too complicated.'"

When Metress finally does get his full squad together, he might have to crane his neck a bit more than usual. One of his team's strengths will be its height, a luxury the Bruins haven't always had under Metress.

"We're going to be bigger than we've been," Metress said. "We've always been midgets, but we seem to have a lot of kids in the 6'3 to 6'5 range. I prefer to have some size out there so rebounding doesn't become a negative."

Along with Jones, guard Brendan McHale figures to be a leader for Lake Braddock. The two have both played for Metress for multiple years.

Metress expects his team to be among the best in the region defensively, just as it was last season, with its brand of lock-down half court defense. He also said that while the success of the football team has complicated things for him a bit, the mentality they bring will be a benefit in the long run.

"They're used to winning," Metress said. "If you throw three of [the football players] in there, they're going to bring a toughness and a winning attitude."

Luckily for the Bruins, they won't have to wait too much longer for that attitude to arrive.

West Springfield Spartans

After going 7-35 the last two years, the West Springfield Spartans needed a change at the top. They may have found the perfect man for the job.

Jason Eldredge took the girls team at Freedom High School just outside Chantilly from 1-21 in his first season to back-to-back VHSL AA state titles just three years later.

"That first year, we were outscored by 820 points, we lost by an average of 42.5 points per game," Eldredge said. "I've been here, I can take it."

Eldredge left Freedom to revive the boys program at West Springfield, and the Spartans hope he can breathe some life into a team that hasn't won since Dec. 30, 2009.

"We're trying to change it around," Eldredge said. "I've got six seniors, and these kids are working really hard. They're a lot more talented than than people think they are. They want a chance to show they can have a respectful team."

Playing in one of the toughest districts in the Northern Region, the Spartans are going to face some of the most talented teams in the region every night. For that reason, they plan on using their conditioning to their advantage.

"We've been training really hard. We hope to wear teams down, get them up-tempo and force erratic offensive play," Eldredge said.

Eldredge brought the read-and-react motion offense that worked so well for his teams at Freedom with him to West Springfield. He cautioned that it took him about three years to get it running at a high level in his previous job.

The next year, his girls won the state championship.

"There's a lot more freelancing to it than a traditional motion offense, and kids have to find the chemistry to it," Eldredge said.

The kids he's looking at to build that foundation are Mitch Hatfield, Ali Hassan, Ali Kazmi, Lawrence Rose and Colin Mosley. He calls the first two his leaders, and the latter three his best basketball players.

Hassan specifically is what Eldredge envisions in a Spartan basketball player.

"His vocal leadership and leadership by example embody what I want this program to be."

To get the program to that next level, Eldredge and his assistants have targeted the freshmen and sophomores at West Springfield, as well as the junior high kids who will become Spartans in the near future. This March, they plan on aggressively targeting younger basketball players, and teaching them the new way at West Springfield.

For now, Eldredge is well aware of the task that lies ahead.

"The problem with this league is there are no breaks," he said. "From TC to Annandale to Woodson to Lake Braddock to West Potomac, there are no breaks in there. Then our out-of-district is all Concorde. There are no breaks and we know that."

Annandale Atoms

If the Annandale Atoms look like the favorite in the competitive Patriot District this year, it has been a long time coming.

Four of Annandale's five starters have been on the varsity team for at least three years, and two, DeAngelo Boyce and Karl Zeigler, are four-year lettermen. That experience, said Coach Anthony Harper, has them ready to get over the hump in a district that includes some of the best teams in the Northern Region, including TC Williams, Woodson and West Potomac.

"I think the kids realize what they can do if they come to play every night," Harper said.

What they can do is use a blend of athleticism and talent, experience and leadership, to challenge for a region title.

"We like to run, we like to get out, we like to get in a high-scoring game," Harper said. "Offensively, we're a fast-break team. We press full-court zone and man. We look to trap full, three-quarters and half court.

"We keep other teams on their heels."

It's challenging to overstate how great of an advantage the Atoms have based solely on experience. Boyce is entering his third year as the starting point guard for a team that depends heavily on the play of its guards. He's in a natural leadership role as the point guard, and after deferring to older players for the last two years, Harper said Boyce finally sees himself in that role.

"We had a lot of seniors, and he kind of stepped back the last two years," Harper said. "Over the summer, he took on a lot of that leadership. Watching the first week of practice, he's taking over the reins."

Along with Boyce and Zeigler, Melvin Robinson and Ronnie McCoy will lead Annandale's hard-pressing defense and transition offense. Harper instituted his system with a measure of success in 2007-08, getting to the second round of regionals. That also happened to be Boyce's and Zeigler's freshman year.

"From there, they've picked it up really well," Harper said.

More and more teams are trying to run up-tempo offenses, but most do not have the talent or experience doing it that Annandale does.

"It definitely plays to our advantage," Harper said.

TC Williams Titans

Julian King, the coach of TC Williams, has a message for all the coaches placing his Titans not only toward the top of the Patriot District, but the entire Northern Region.

"I think they give us a little more credit than we deserve," King said laughing. "Every year, we're replacing five or six seniors. Those guys who we're replacing played a lot of minutes, and we're throwing a lot of kids right into the fire."

The Titans, winners of the Northern Region three straight years from 2007 through 2009, did lose Ryan Yates, Tayron Chambers, Cortez Taylor, Billy Rowland and Darius Porter from last year's team. But, as always, they have ready-made replacements in Tyrell Sitton, Daquan Kerman and Tyler Driver.

"Tyrell is going to be a jack of all trades," King said of his starting small forward. "His role has changed, he's going to have to score a lot, but he's still going to have the toughest defensive assignment, he needs to rebound and handle the ball."

In Kerman and Driver, the Titans two point guards worthy of starting, a luxury most teams don't have. Even though he could start at the two-guard, Driver will come off the bench as the team's sixth man.

"For Daquan, it's his normal job. Run the show, keep the defense on their heels, attack the basket," King said. "Tyler's strength is his overall basketball IQ. He's a guy who can fill many roles. He can run the point, come in as a shooting guard.

"He knows his role and plays it very well."

One thing the Titans do very well as a team is play defense and protect the ball. In contrast with the TC Williams teams of the past, this version will slow it down a little more and play a more conservative style of basketball.

"We don't have the extraordinary athletes to get up and down," King said. "We tend to play a little more structured, starting inside-out."

Another big reason the Titans plan to go inside-out this season is the return of power forward Jamal Pullen, who is ready to be a presence in the post and a definite scoring threat according to his coach. T.J. Huggins and Jordan Byrd will also see their roles expand this season.

TC Williams season was undermined by the ineligibility of two players, which forced the team to forfeit 12 games it had won earlier in the season. This year, the team is just focused on winning.

"We play hard every game," King said. "We're patient and we execute. We basically have a game plan and try to stick to it."

If they can stick to those game plans, the other coaches in the region will end up proving King wrong. He likely won't mind.

Woodson Cavaliers

For Woodson point guard John Schoof, 2010 is all about hunger.

Schoof missed the entire 2009 season after tearing ligaments in his ankle, a season in which the Cavaliers felt they underachieved after going 12-12 and losing in the first round of the Northern Region tournament to Stuart.

Now, with a healthy ankle and a basketball scholarship to American University, Schoof is ready to lead Woodson in the challenging Patriot District.

"We're all hungry and ready to play," Schoof said.

The first thing that stands out about the Cavaliers is their size, as they feature eight players 6'3 and 6'6. Schoof, who runs the point based on his skill set, is at 6'5 the same size as David Nosal, the team's starting center.

"We can use our size and length a lot," Schoof said. "We're pretty tall across the board."

Coach Doug Craig said that his team's size makes them "look pretty good coming out of the tunnel," but he also said the height of his players gives them a practical advantage that goes beyond rebounding, shot blocking and getting easy looks.

"With all that size, we're pretty versatile," Craig said. "We have some guys that can slide to multiple positions and can move guys around based on matchups."

In addition to having size and a Division-I player, Woodson has a ton of experience. Craig said he has five players back this year who played at least 200 minutes at the varsity level last season, along with Schoof, who did the same as a sophomore in 2008-09.

"To have that many underclassmen play significant amounts, whether they were starters or came off the bench as part of the rotation, we have a lot more experience than we have in years past," Craig said. "All those guys coming back together is pretty nice."

Of course, the Cavaliers lost Northern Region Player of the Year Max Lenox, and while that is a huge loss, the Cavs are more balanced this year and have multiple guys capable of carrying the team offensively from game to game.

"We a little more gifted offensively than last year's team," Craig said. "Last year we had maybe two guys who could put up 15 to 18 points a night. This year, I've got five, six, seven guys who can do that on a given night."

Schoof and Nosal certainly are two of those guys, along with guards Mark Noe, Jordin Twenhofel and Michael Muldoon, and guard-forward Andrew Boehling.

Craig also kept one freshman on the varsity team, Daniel Noe, Mark's younger brother.

"He's very basketball-savvy for a young kid," Craig said. "He picks up a lot of things that you don't have to tell him to do, especially defensively."

In a district that includes TC Williams, Annandale and West Potomac, three teams that figure to be among the best in the region, Woodson will have to be ready to play every night. With a fully-healthy Schoof back, that shouldn't be a problem.

West Potomac Wolverines

When looking at the Patriot District, coaches consistently bring up the prowess of TC Williams, the experience of Annandale and the size and star quality of Woodson. It seems the West Potomac Wolverines, last year's district champions, are getting a little overlooked heading into the 2010-11 season.

"We lost a lot of guys, so I think that people are really overlooking us," Coach David Houston said. "We really think that we prepared ourselves to have the best season we can have. We know that when people come here to play us it's not going to be easy."

As Houston said, the main reason the Wolverines may not be getting the same notice as the TCW, Annandale and Woodson heading into the season is the loss of four-year varsity player Martez Redfearn, who averaged 14.4 points last season. To do that would be to overlook Daryl Copeland and Jalen Dawson, a pair of seniors who head into their third year of varsity basketball fresh off huge football seasons.

"From the talent we have, we can win the district again, and be one of the top runners in the region," Copeland said.

Led by Copeland and Dawson, two speedy guards who also starred as wide receivers for West Potomac, the Wolverines will continue to try and generate offense through defense. As usual, they'll feature a "32 Minutes of Hell"-style defense, pressing from "the opening tap to the final horn," according to Houston. They'll look to their defense to create offense, and try to get out in transition as much as possible.

At a recent practice, the Wolverines spent the entire first hour working on nothing but transition drills.

"Defensively, we get after it," Houston said. "Our motto is when they get off the bus and come in the doors we've got a guy on them. We think we have a lot of good athletes here and we try to use it to our advantage."

In a loaded district, the Wolverines feel they're just as likely to come out as anyone.

"We can be one of the teams left trying to vie for a district title," Houston said. "We want to make some noise in the region. We know we have a long ways to go, but we think with our athleticism and our skill we can be one of those teams trying to get to Robinson."

South County Stallions

Nik Biberaj is all alone, yet surrounded at the same time.

The 6'7 senior forward is the only returning starter from a 16-7 South County team last year.

Last year's team also dipped into its bench begrudgingly. This year, Coach Wendell Johnson said the Stallions will probably go 10-deep in a game.

Alone, yet surrounded.

"This is all stuff that is new for me and new for the guys, but we're looking for a lot of guys to go three or four minutes at a time," Johnson said. "You don't have to worry if you're tired. We're going to have a lot of depth, we can go to another guy and not fall off."

To that end, South County kept a larger than average team. Johnson has a squad of 15 players, including six seniors and seven juniors. Even with that upperclassmen presence, many of them have no experience at the varsity level.

"We have quite a few kids that are untested," Johnson said. "We think they're going to do pretty well, but we need to compare them to the rest of the district."

The Patriot District is one of the toughest to be compared with, even for the most seasoned of teams. With TC Williams, Annandale, Woodson and West Potomac all looking like top-tier regional teams, the Stallions will have their work cut out for them.

With depth as quite possibly its greatest strength, South County wants to run a transition game more often than they did last year. The responsibility for getting the ball up the floor falls to starting point guard Alex Carrington, a senior, and backup Lance Robinson, a junior who saw time last season as a sophomore.

"We're looking for Alex to step up at our point guard position," Johnson said. "We're looking to push the ball more than we did, see if we can put a little bit more pressure on our opponents."

Even with a greater emphasis and getting up and down the floor, for the Stallions it all starts with Biberaj.

"He's pretty versatile," Johnson said of his talented forward. "In the past he has been a team guy, and we've had other guys that he has deferred to. We're looking at him to take the leap."

Hopefully for South County, he won't take that leap alone.

Lee Lancers

Anytime a team loses its entire starting five, as the Lee Lancers did after last season, the following hear is going to be a challenge. When that same team plays in the Patriot District, it could be nearly impossible.

"We've got an extremely young bunch," said Coach Michael Harris. "We've got some great kids, but experience is not something we're blessed with."

Six of the 10 players for Lee have played exactly zero minutes of varsity basketball. The Lancers are also counting on two freshmen, Chris Hann and Connor Schoske, to give them a post presence.

Harris expects guards Maseer Ghorab and C.J. Lewis to be the leaders of his team. Ghorab, specifically, can create his own shot and moves well off the ball. Still, neither played a ton last season, so there's some uncertainty as to how they will perform as starters.

"When you're a backup and all of a sudden you're expected to be a starter, there's a transition period," Harris said.

One thing the Lancers do have is size. Eric Shirley and David Johnson, who both figure to play in the post, are 6'7 and 6'4, respectively. During practice, Harris has stressed the importance of using their height.

"We need to try to involve our bigs a little more," Harris said. "Our perimeter guys need to improve on getting the ball inside."

For Lee, whether or not a few players step up and lead the team is the great unknown heading into the season.

"We have three guys who played a bit for us last year, but they were role players as opposed to being in the front line," Harris said. "It's a different mindset when you go in for a couple minutes and now you're responsible for being the man. That's the part they're going to have to grow in to."


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