KINGWOOD — The Preston girls’ basketball team is in a bit of a pickle.
The Knights are slated to start their season Monday — a road trip to No. 7 Buckhannon-Upshur. However, they’ve only been in the gym as a full ensemble once, and it was for a scrimmage.
“I’ll tell you, it’s been rough. We’ve battled several injuries and we’ve had girls missing here and there,” coach Brian Miller said. “We’ve missed four practices because of weather. After the first day, we haven’t had the whole team there.”
According to senior Erica Myers, the lack of repetition as a unit has hampered the unit as they try to get into game shape to open its slate.
“That’s definitely been a problem. With us not all able to be together, we’re struggling a little bit more than we have before. It’s definitely showing with our performance,” she said.
Youth also plays a role in the slow start — of the 14 varsity players, nine are underclassmen and seven of those are freshmen. Myers is the sole senior on the roster.
“With this many new people and this many young ones, I don’t know what you can expect. Even our returners, they’re all in different spots,” Miller said. “Even the ones we have coming back are in different positions. What we need right now is time in the gym, and we’re not getting it.”
The inexperience and lack of practice led the team to develop a condition Miller calls “paralysis analysis.”
“There is some athleticism and some skill there, but they do a whole lot of thinking and not a lot of doing,” he said.
“The stuff that I think the freshmen are having to learn is more than they’ve ever had to learn. They’re working so hard to do things right and they’ll spend so much time thinking about that by the time they get it, it’s too late. It’s not second nature; they need repetition.”
Myers said the problem stems from nervousness — for younger, less-experienced athletes, the fear of messing up is often greater, and they shoot for perfection. But too often they get caught up in the details.
“I think the freshmen are just worried about getting everything right each time down the floor, but that’s just not how this game works. Worrying about getting it perfect makes you mess up more than normal,” she said. “They can all play basketball and they need to do it. They’re nervous, but I think they’re catching on pretty quickly.”
One asset the Knights do bring to the table this season is versatility, and Miller assures there is plenty of it to go around.
“I will say one of the positives of this group is that everybody on the team has multiple skill sets. There is not one person who is pigeonholed into a position. Top to bottom, they can all do a little bit of everything,” he said.
“Our bigs can handle the ball, our guards can post-up, and we can do a bunch of different things. We can go four guards, five guards — we even went the other night with one guard, one forward and three bigs. We can interchange people up and down the lineup and all over the place and we can be comfortable with it.”
Myers sees the talent as a sort of connector for the team — it helps bring them together, and to back each other up when one has an off night.
“I think we all bring something good to the table. I don’t think anyone outshines anyone — we’re all about the same. We can all shoot, we can all run the floor and we can all play more than position,” she said.
“I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people this year. People are thinking we’re really young and that there are a lot of freshmen playing varsity, but I think we’re going to shock people here in the coming weeks.”
