Young Rebels picking up valuable experience

BASIN - Rebuilding years are always a taxing endeavor and it has been no different for the Riverside High School (0-2) boys basketball team but for these young Rebels they're still going to give maximum effort each time they step on the court.

The Rebels opened their season at the Shoshoni Canyon Classic on Dec. 15-16 against 1A Saratoga and 1A Dubois.

With only 10 players on the roster, two of which are upperclassmen, senior Michael Wildman and junior Justen Miller, and the rest underclassmen, Riverside lost their first two games of the season, 59-26 to Saratoga and 46-32 to Dubois.

For a young and inexperienced team that's still learning to play the game, RHS boys basketball coach Jared Collingwood was encouraged by how hard his team played yet still noting there's plenty of work left to do.

"I felt that our boys played very hard and worked on some of the things we have talked about in practice. We still struggle with some basics like guarding against cuts to the basket, knowing our offense and defensive sets and boxing out and pursuing the basketball," said coach Collingwood. "Our age and inexperience shows when playing teams that have upperclassmen because we are just not sure of what to do in those instances where "basketball" comes into play, but that comes with play."

Coach Collingwood also liked how his team was able to effectively go through their out of bounds sets and their patient approach on offense. During the break the Rebels will look to improve their defensive communication and execution.

"Our boys did a great job of trying to execute out of bounds plays and taking advantage of what we had on offense. We still need to work on our focus of getting into offense and defense early and executing. Typically when we play smaller schools there are one to three players that you have to account for, because the level of talent is limited, and we did not do a great job of shutting down the other team's top players. But, with more experience those things will come," said coach Collingwood.

Before the Christmas break Riverside played a freshman game against Greybull which coach Collingwood used as a means to give his younger players added experience.

"We played a freshman game against Greybull Monday and it was a good chance for those younger players to get experience against kids their age. They were able to implement some things that they struggle with against varsity level competition and that helps to show that our inexperience is a reason for some of our struggles," said coach Collingwood.

Out of the break Riverside is slated to play in the Big Horn Basin basketball tournament, their first game will be against the Worland Warriors in Worland on Jan. 5 at Worland High School.