The Gilmer High Bobcats will look quite a bit different on the basketball court this season.
Gilmer graduated two tall guards in Ryder Wofford and Kohan Davis while center Jackson McVey transferred for his senior season. Head coach Jordan Hice maintains their offensive game plan will not vary much from years past while they will apply more pressure defensively.
As of last Thursday’s interview, Hice had 13 players in the program, but he said that number could hover around 20 once football players finish their season. The preseason was spent conditioning and getting players to the point where fatigue would not be an issue at practices. Hice also focused on improving players’ speed, agility and lateral movement.
“Not only did we want to get our condition up, but it was also to work on preventing injuries at the start,” said Hice. “We want to train those muscles to get ready for those five-days per week practices for 2 1/2 to three hours. We conditioned three days per week for about six weeks, and I had 12 out there each time.”
Once official practices got underway, the Bobcats started to feel out their new roles on both ends of the court.
Hice noted that rebounding is always a focus, which turned out to be an issue for the Cats in their exhibition versus Union County. GHS lost by 13 and gave up 21 second-chance points.
“We really haven’t changed the aspect of what we’re doing offensively,” Hice said. “Obviously, we don’t have our big (McVey) so there’s not that huge focus of throwing the ball inside. We’re really not changing our offense. We’re running the same stuff, but we have to focus on other areas. We don’t have this option anymore, so we’re focusing on other options. Our focus has been on that guard aspect of scoring and who are our major players and who are our role players.”
Hice also discussed how the Bobcats will alter their defensive approach with a significantly smaller lineup.
“We’re looking at different ways we can be effective defensively. We’re not going to be as big as we were last year because we lost a ton of height throughout the guards and post,” Hice said.
“Kohan was 6’ 4”, Ryder was 6’ 5” and then you had Jackson, a 7-footer, with a bunch of experience who we lost. We may not be as tall but we’re quicker. We’ve been running press every single day. I just have to make sure we have the depth to run it. We want to have high pressure on the ball to force something dumb off the dribble as opposed to let’s make them pass over us and get an easy steal.”
Returning all-region players, senior J.D. Taylor and junior Keegen Bryant, were the team’s fourth and third leading scorers a season ago. Hice expects the offensive output to improve for his guard duo.
Remaining seniors include Mack Kiser, Cooper Farmer, Riley Davis and Blane Banks. Joining Bryant are fellow juniors Boston Teague, Jaden Sevcech and Alex Miltiades
“This will be J.D’s third year as a starter, and we’re looking for his senior leadership. This is Keegen’s third year as a starter, too. They’ll be making sure our offense is ran and people are doing what they’re supposed to,” Hice said.
“Mack and Cooper are two we’re looking at to be good role players whether they’re starting or coming off the bench. We’re looking to get a lot from Boston and Jaden starting some or being that sixth or seventh man.”
With guard-heavy rotations, the Bobcats will likely take more outside shots, but only if they are falling. GHS struggled from three-point territory last season. That was also a focus for Hice as the season approached.
“We developed four different workouts the kids go through throughout the year.” Hice said. “They have to come in at least three times per week in the morning just to get those shots up and complete those workouts.
“Each workout is 800 shots, and you’d like them to complete at least one per week. It still didn’t show us anything against Union where we were 1/17 from the three-point line. If we’re hitting them, heck yeah we’ll be firing a lot more threes this year.”
Gilmer will take the court against new region opponents. Most were region foes in previous seasons, with the only brand-new team being Calhoun, who Hice believes is the likely favorite to win the region.
The Bobcats are coming off a region title and two region championship game appearances in a row. GHS is also on a three-year postseason run, and Hice discussed the team’s goals for this year.
“A lot of what we’ve talked about is what we need to do in games to put ourselves in position to win,” Hice said. “We have to be around that 70-point mark offensively. We’ve talked about the points we need out of our star players and what we need from our role players. We have to keep it to 10 turnovers or less as a team.”
Gilmer’s postseason seeding will be decided by power rankings. The top four teams from each region advance to the playoffs, and Class 3A has two at-large bids to make up the postseason field of 32 teams.
GHS opened the regular season last Saturday with a 70-41 loss to Pickens and hosts Dawson Thursday.