Leopold Boys Basketball Preview

Conference: Mississippi Valley

Coach: Corey Brownsberger, 1st year

District: Class 1 District 2

Schedule:

Date Day of Week Opponent Location Time

December 1-5, 2014 Monday-Friday Woodland Invitational Tournament Woodland TBA

December 9, 2014 Tuesday Woodland Home 6 p.m.

December 16, 2014 Tuesday Greenville Away 6 p.m.

December 18, 2014 Thursday St. Vincent Away 6 p.m.

December 26-30, 2014 Friday-Tuesday Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament Show-Me Center TBA

January 6, 2015 Tuesday Meadow Heights Home 6 p.m.

January 9, 2015 Friday Clarkton Away 6 p.m.

January 13, 2015 Tuesday Oak Ridge Away 6 p.m.

January 16, 2015 Friday Marquand-Zion Home 6 p.m.

January 22, 2015 Thursday Richland (Essex) Home 6 p.m.

January 23, 2015 Friday Bell City Away 6 p.m.

January 26, 2015 Monday Scott City Away 6 p.m.

January 27, 2015 Tuesday Chaffee Home 6 p.m.

January 30, 2015 Friday Oran Home 6 p.m.

February 2-6, 2015 Monday-Friday Mississippi Valley Conference (MVC) Tournament Greenville TBA

February 10, 2015 Tuesday Puxico Home 6 p.m.

February 13, 2015 Friday Advance Away 6 p.m.

February 17, 2015 Tuesday Zalma Away 6 p.m.

February 20, 2015 Friday Delta Away 6 p.m.

Roster:

No. Player Year Height

3 Garrett Thiele 11 6'1

10 Austin Bucher 12 6'5

11 Zach Elfrink 12 6'3

12 Cody Gentry 12 5'9

21 Tristan Graham 9 5'8

22 Blake Eeftink 10 5'11

24 Cord Cooper 12 6'4

32 Blake Leazenby 9 6'2

35 John Gray 11 6'5

45 Matt Ford 12 5'10

Returning starters: Austin Bucher

Starters lost: Cameron Davis, Dillan Vandeven, Andrew McWilliams, Zach Beel

Last year's record: 21-4

Postseason result: Lost to Scott County Central 62-64 in the district championship

Last year's leaders:

Points: Cameron Davis (17 ppg)

Rebounds: Zach Beel (9 rpg)

Assists: Davis (5.4 apg)

Team outlook

In his first season as the Leopold boys basketball coach, Corey Brownsberger is working to install his style of play. But he's not going to totally abandon what has made the players he inherited so successful over the past several seasons.

"I think you've got to come in saying 'This is how I'd like to play,'" Brownsberger said. "But obviously I think as a good coach you've got to be able to mix it up a little bit because what made those kids successful the last couple years was that system, so you want the transition to be as smooth possible."

Brownsberger is teaching "man-to-man principles" and prefers that style of defense, but his players have mostly played zone for their previous two coaches, dating back to their junior high days.

"That's just from when I was in high school to the coaches I've been around, from Coach [Kim] Anderson who's now at Mizzou," said Brownsberger, who served as a student assistant to Anderson for four seasons at Central Missouri University. "I've just been doing a lot of man-to-man stuff, so that's kind of been a difficult transition in terms of that.

"And then we do a lot of screening offensively. We do a lot of ball movement. We're not going to rely on dribble-drives as much as we are ball movement and setting a screen to get somebody else open, so just some differences in concepts that have been a little rough at the beginning, but they're really starting to hit their stride in the last couple days."

Four starters are gone from the Leopold team that lost to eventual state champion Scott County Central 64-62 in the district championship, including graduated point guard Cameron Davis.

"From the day I got here a kid that came up to me and said he wanted that responsibility was Zach Elfrink," Brownsberger said. "And I think that that was awesome just from the standpoint that any time you come in to a job, you know, coaches are the leaders, but there's going to be a point in the season where they've heard me say stuff over and over again that you need you need one of your kids or multiple kids to come up and be a leader, and by Zach coming up and saying that he wanted that leadership role of being the point guard from day one shows me that he wants to be a leader, so we're going to rely on him, too."

Senior Austin Bucher, who grew to 6-foot-5 in the offseason, will be counted on for scoring, especially in the absence of post player Zach Beel, who played with the team all summer but recently transferred to Woodland.

"I'll count on him a lot," Brownsberger said of Bucher. "He's probably our go-to scorer as we start the season, and he's a guy who's going to guard the best offensive player from the other team."

District breakdown

Leopold will rejoin Class 1 District 3 this season after spending the last couple of years in District 2. While the team has been considered title contenders the past couple years, it doesn't bother Brownsberger that this group probably won't be.

"We lost so much last year in terms of Cameron Davis and so many other seniors and whatnot that these kids from a really early time, really as soon as I took the job and we got into the summer have heard how they're not really expected to do a whole lot," said Brownsberger, who called South Iron and Eminence the district favorites. "We've lost so much. We only have one starter coming back and another kid that played quite a bit on the varsity level that they're the underdogs from the start, and the last several years that hasn't been the case. Leopold's had a bull's-eye on their back that they're one of the top, upper-echelon teams in whatever district they've been in, and I think it's good -- I look at it from the standpoint I like being the underdog anyway, but these kids are just so hungry to go out and prove people wrong."

Looking back

Brownsberger was still a college student studying hundreds of miles away when Leopold played last season, so he spent the summer studying some more.

"I've watched a lot of tape on opponents that we'll play this year from last year and 95 percent of those coaches will be back," Brownsberger said.

He wanted to learn about his team as well as its opponents.

"I always felt like the more than my kids knew or the more we were prepared in terms of scouting, the better we played because it left a lot less to question of what am I supposed to do in this situation?" he said.