A brand new season of Texas High hoops has begun with head coach Jacob Skinner, who inherited the program last season. His squad of veteran and new players are preparing to face the Lobos tonight in Longview.
“Longview is always one of the biggest rival games for us, other than Arkansas,” senior Aaron Jones said. “We always give it our all on the court. We always want to beat them.”
The team has high hopes of becoming a better team than last year. Goals have been set to help them produce the results that they want.
“Improving off of last year,” senior Kevin Paxton said. “Getting better everyday is the key to our success [and] to become district champs and make playoffs.”
With a new year comes new changes to the roster and schedule. One change is not including the rivalry game against Arkansas.
“I feel like that’s not fair,” senior Chad Pollins said. “But it gives us a chance to play LE and other teams.”
Jones said the decision to remove them from the schedule stemmed from past conflicts.
“Because of safety, they canceled the Arkansas games,” Jones said. “The game doesn’t produce enough revenue to keep it in the schedule”
Basketball is not as easy as it seems, especially with the conditioning that comes with preparing for a game.
“I’m basically conditioning for the purpose to win,” junior Taylor Jackson said. “But it’s taking me some time to get my legs back.”
Win or lost there is always a coach who makes a difference in the game with his different coaching style.
“His coaching methods are good,” senior Chris Hart said. “We just have to buy into them to have a successful season.”
With a season so far roughly divided between wins and losses, the team is using the time to determine areas to strengthen.
“We have lost some stupid games, but through those games we were learning,” Jones said. “They were games that we needed to lose so that we would know what we needed to improve on in our defense and offense.”
As they continue to play out of district games, the team has a positive outlook for their season.
“Once we truly do what we are supposed to do, give all our effort on the court, every single play instead of taking plays off, we will have a great season,” Jones said. “We will be hard to beat.”
We played games with people having huge student sections that get the whole crowd going. when you are faced with that momentum it’s hard to overcome. We need that support from our fans.
