It's an unenviable position for fourth-year Wood River High School boys' basketball coach John Radford and his 11-player varsity looking at prospects for the 2009-10 season.
Radford graduated five seniors who provided 82% of the scoring for last year's 2-18 team. Plus, Wood River plays in one of the toughest 4A conferences in the state of Idaho, maybe even the toughest.
And the Great Basin Conference, already boasting two of Idaho's best young basketball coaches in Burley's Jack Bagley and Jerome's Joe Messick, got a lot tougher this year with the addition of the 2006 5A state champ Twin Falls Bruins and their veteran coach Matt Harr.
Burley won the State 4A title in 2007 and 2008. Jerome (24-3 last year) qualified for its first state tournament since 1998 last winter and pushed eventual unbeaten champ Skyview (26-0) into overtime in the 4A semi-finals before settling for third place over Sandpoint.
Meanwhile, Harr turned around a 6-16 Bruins team and ended up with a 19-6 record and third place in the State 5A tournament over Post Falls. And he returns the region's best player in senior Jon Pulsifer (16.1 ppg) as the Bruins drop down to 4A.
That's a tough trio of schools atop the new six-school league.
But Radford is a pretty good basketball coach himself, always emphasizing the educational aspects of the game with the boys. Like his predecessor Fred Trenkle, he knows the importance of defense. Radford can rattle off a number, 16-4, that tells you the record of his three previous Wolverine teams when they hold an opponent to 50 points or less.
"That's a benchmark number, keeping people under 50 points," Radford said.
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He's a realist—after all, Wood River hasn't had a winning boys' basketball season since 1991 when the current seniors were newborns. He wants his Wolverine teams playing their best basketball at the end of the season. He values good attitudes and execution.
And Radford likes the attitudes of his varsity (4 seniors, 5 juniors, 2 sophomores) that opens its 18-game season slate Friday, Dec. 4 with home games against Filer (17-9 last winter, lost 60-52 in the State 3A consolation final to St. Maries).
"It's a great group of kids," said Radford, helped by varsity assistant Rick Bradshaw. "They played 36 games this summer and improved themselves. Execution will be a big part of our success. We'll do everything by committee and address the challenges as they come."
Seniors are Juan Martinez, Ryan Dean, Jordan Doan and Keven Abbott. Juniors are Kevin Jensen, Isaiah Garza, Alex Padilla, Luis Chavez and 6-2 Swedish exchange student Olle Hoeglund. The sophomores are promising players—Stone Sutton and 6-2 front-court player Quentin Dowdle.
Sutton and Dowdle are likely to provide much of Wood River's scoring and rebounding. Effective off the ball, Sutton has strong basketball instincts and can shoot and score from anywhere. Dowdle can be a factor on the boards and has a nice free throw shooting touch.
One big pre-season problem is, Wood River has no proven varsity scorers. Point guard Doan averaged 3.6 ppg last winter, but his 69 points were the most of the returning players. The Wolverines lost top scorers like Bryan Tidwell (11.8 ppg), Michale Brunker (8.9 ppg) and Greg Wakefield (7.6).
Wood River did shoot well at the free throw line (69%) last season, but opponents got to the charity stripe much more, 428 times to 253 for the Wolverines. And it looks like Wood River's offense will be perimeter oriented again this winter.
During last Tuesday's three-school jamboree at Carey School, the Wolverines started Doan, Abbott, Dowdle, Martinez and Sutton against coach Kevin Cato's Hagerman Pirates and bolted ahead 28-15 after the first 10-minute half—nailing five 3-pointers.
Wood River also nipped the highly regarded Carey Panthers 31-28 in another 20-minute game last Tuesday.
This year's junior varsity coach with 10 players is Liz Clark, who played guard for coach Scott Rueck at George Fox University in Newberg, Ore. from 2001-05. Rueck guided the Bruins to a 32-0 record and the school's first NCAA Division 3 women's basketball title last March. Wood River freshman coach is Rob Gardner, with 11 players.
Wood River senior guard Ryan Dean drives past Hagerman’s 6-4 senior Josh Douville during last Tuesday’s three-school jamboree at Carey High School.
