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Clovers want to build on last season's success
CLOVERDALE--If the 2013-14 season was exciting for the town of Cloverdale, the 2014-15 boys' basketball season might just be the hottest thing going in the west-central portion of Indiana.
The preseason Class 2A No. 5 Clovers compiled a 19-2 record last season and picked up the Putnam County and WCC titles, only to be denied a sectional win by eventual regional runners-up Speedway, a loss that didn't deter head coach Pat Rady's feelings abut the season.
"We were very pleased with the season last year and we didn't get beat by a team that wasn't very good," Rady said. "Speedway was a very good team and ranked as well after playing some good teams.
"They went to the final of the regional and played Park Tudor to a very strong game. You always want to end the season with a win, and that's what you want to do in the state tournament, but sometimes you come up short and you have to face that."
While the Clovers only graduated two seniors in Kedrick Collett and Kade Schroer, Rady said that the returning varsity players needed to step up into leadership roles quickly.
"You always hate to lose seniors because seniors have been with you and know what you're wanting and what to do," Rady noted. "They're the leaders for you and I think the seniors this year can duplicate that and be leaders like the seniors were last year."
What returns, however, is a trio of starters that averaged 55 points-per-game and were named to the all-Putnam County team in sophomore Cooper Neese and seniors Branston Scott and Putnam County Player of the Year Marquise Moore.
Rady said that having all three in the lineup again would keep Cloverdale ticking right along.
"We have three starters back and all three starters were in double figures," Rady noted. "You expect that they'll be ready to go right out of the gate.
"We've had a good summer and fall because they've been in and done a lot of the work that we had ready for them to do. We stressed a lot on technique and shooting, so we're looking forward to those three starters returning to be strong leaders, use their experience and to be even better players this year."
Also returning from the squad include seniors Fred Fislar and Tyler Lotz, along with sophomore Duke Duff, all of whom received varsity minutes last year.
New additions include seniors Brayden White, K.J. Coleman and freshman Jalen Moore to round out the current varsity squad.
With depth and size at his disposal, Rady said the most important thing in the early part of the season was for the players to find their way into the team.
"No matter if you're a starter or coming off the bench, the quicker that you can find your role to play, which includes the three returning starers, the better off we'll be," Rady said. "Team chemistry, playing your role and staying within the concept of what we're trying to do offensively and defensively is extremely important."
Among the things that Rady wants to see improved on is rebounding, an area where the Clovers averaged roughly 26 per game, while also putting more pressure on opposing teams.
"We hope that our rebounding is improved," Rady said. "We want to be a better rebounding team than we were last year.
"We hope we'll be a better running team, even though we were a running team to some extent last year. We want to be even quicker and put pressure on the ball defensively and attack offensively and we have players coming in that will be able to contribute to both of those."
With the additional depth afforded to the Clovers this season, Rady said that the team would look for new ways to get after opponents on the offensive end.
"We're changing some things as we're not running the same offense that we did last year," Rady said. "We're changing some defensive sets as well.
"We'll be doing some things differently right off the bat, so it's going to take a while for us to gel and get into what we want to do this year. We hope that, down the road, we expect to be better than where we're at right now this season."
In order to be better down the road, Cloverdale has beefed up its schedule to add in games against a tougher level of competition, something Rady said was vital to continue developing as the season progresses.
"We've added some teams that we've not played in a while and we were selected to participate in the Pizza Hut Classic," Rady said. "You've got Northview, Terre Haute North and South, Marshall (Ill.), Linton and Sullivan among the 16 teams.
"We added Edgewood and Owen Valley this year, we've got Tri-West again and all the conference teams are better this year than what they were last year.
"We have a much tougher schedule this year," Rady added. "It might be the toughest schedule since I've been here."
And while a 19-win season would be nice, Rady said that winning without improvement would not serve the Clovers well in the end.
"To match the season we had last year at 19-2 is not the criteria we will look at," Rady pointed out. "The criteria we will use is whether we are getting better each game and how good can we be come tournament time.
"We're in an outstanding sectional that is going to be played at Speedway this year. We have to be playing better basketball than we've ever played and with the schedule we have, we may not have the wins, but the schedule is going to make us a better team by the end of the year."
With great expectations this year also comes a greater challenge as Cloverdale will, as Rady put it, be the team everyone is aiming for when they step onto the court this season.
"Because of the record we had last year, we're going to have a target on our chest," Rady said. "They're going to come after us and there is nothing wrong with that.
"I'd rather us be the hunted. That means we've done something.
"We've got a good program going right now. We've got good basketball players and we play the game well, so it's nice that people are going to come for us.
"We've got to react to that, though. We've got to prepare and continue to work hard because every game we play is going to be the big game on someone's schedule."
Cloverdale opens its season with a home opener against North Central (Farmersburg) next Tuesday.