Fox Creek Christian 2015/2016

Ok, here is my annual write up on my group of kids.

Fox Creek returns 4 juniors and adds a newcomer who will be the starting lineup to open the season. 5'10 Derion Perry will be the starting pg, replacing Jr. Daniel Whalen who decided not to play this season. Whalen will be missed, but Perry, a more natural shooting guard, got valuable experience last year in the pg role as the back up and will be asked to step up this year as the starter. He also brings a little more scoring from the pg position. 6'2 Tyler Harley will be the starting 2 guard. Tyler is long and athletic and is better than he shows at times. The Knights will depend on him more this year than they did last year for scoring and rebounding. He has the kind of game where he could put up 25 points on any given night when he focuses and gives his best effort.

6'1 Jr. pf Zack Rice returns with his double digit scoring and rebounding. Zack really blossomed last year and became much more aggressive to go along with his powerful frame. Fox Creek will once again depend on him to score down low and rebound. His partner in the post will be 6'5 jr center Justin Ritchie. Justin's game also started to come around last year and he provided valuable minutes in the post, and he is both long and BIG. Though not a prolific scorer and still not possessing an offensive game the coaches would like to see from him, he eats up a lot of space and gets rebounds. With that said, he will also show flashes with the ball with post moves that will leave you wondering "why doesn't he do that more"? Newcomer jr. 6'2 Grant Caldwell will hold down the 3 guard spot. Grant brings some experience having played jv ball for Anderson County last year and like Tyler Harley is very long. The Knights will look for Grant to help score and rebound.

That's it (right now) for the upper classman. All the bench is made up of one sophomore and a bunch of freshman. Of those, the best may be 6'0 frosh Chase Smith. Chase has played pg for Fox Creek since the 6th grade, primarily because there was no one else that could run it. Chase is a very young (should be age wise in the 8th grade) but growing and husky kid whose natural position is more the 3/4 spot. Having to play pg the past 3 years has helped his ball handling tremendously, and he understand the game better than a lot of kids his age. He will be looked at for spot duty anywhere from the 1 to the 4 positions during varsity games. Newcomer to the program frosh Nolan Stevenson may get some looks here and there, and will definitely get plenty of time on the jv team. He has good size for the pg position, is pretty athletic and strong. It has yet to be seen how he plays against older kids so there are still lots of questions. 6'2 center frosh AJ Castle returns to the Knights program after missing last year. AJ is a very big kid and still playing football, but should help contribute at the 4/5 spot and get some rebounds, using his bulk to eat of the middle.

Freshman Logan Fields and Caleb Hatter, both good shooters could see some spot duty with the varsity. It remains to be seen if anyone else will be able to contribute at the varsity level. Hopefully some will surprise me during some jv contests and can contribute to the varsity.

Overall, Fox Creek will have a pretty decent starting five. After that, right now it's a guessing game with freshman being depended upon to contribute valuable minutes. That can make for a long season. The five juniors have been told to get ready, they might not come off the floor until they absolutely have to. And with our propensity to foul, that might not take a couple of them very long. Strengths of this team...we are big on the wings and have some size down low, so rebounding hopefully won't be an issue. We should be able to score. Weaknesses...this team won't have a lot of speed and we don't appear as of yet to be very good defensively. This is not a team that can come out and play straight man the whole night. Mixing defenses will be a must, trying to keep other teams out of sync. We will also be thin depending on freshman to contribute. There also hasn't been anyone yet to step up as a leader. If/when they do I will feel a whole lot better about this team. If no one does step up...well les just say that won't be a good thing.

Fox Creek Christian opens up Friday night (10/30) at home with a varsity double header and a jv game in-between. Varsity plays Landmark Christian at 5:30, jv games follows and varsity ends the night with another game with Wesley Christian. We should see pretty quickly what we need to work on.