Oak Ridge Boys Basketball Preview

Conference: Mississippi Valley

Coach: Adam Stoneking, 7th 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 8, 2014 Monday Scott City Away 6 p.m.

December 9, 2014 Tuesday Delta Away 6 p.m.

December 12, 2014 Friday Saxony Lutheran Home 6 p.m.

December 16, 2014 Tuesday Bell City Home 6 p.m.

December 19, 2014 Friday East Prairie Home 6 p.m.

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

January 9, 2015 Friday Scott County Central Home 6 p.m.

January 12, 2015 Monday St. Vincent Home 6 p.m.

January 13, 2015 Tuesday Leopold Home 6 p.m.

January 16, 2015 Friday Zalma Away 6 p.m.

January 20, 2015 Tuesday Marquand-Zion Away 6 p.m.

January 23, 2015 Friday Greenville Home 6 p.m.

January 27, 2015 Tuesday Oran Away 6 p.m.

January 30, 2015 Friday Kelly Away 6 p.m.

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

February 10, 2015 Tuesday Meadow Heights Away 6 p.m.

February 13, 2015 Friday Chaffee Home 6 p.m.

February 16, 2025 Monday Ste. Genevieve Away 6 p.m.

Roster:

No. Player Year Height

2 Steven Masterson 10 5'8

3 Nathan Bolin 11 6'3

4 Tyee Curry 10 5'9

11 Zack Moore 11 6'0

12 Jordan Gilliland 11 5'11

14 Jacob Seabaugh 12 6'3

20 Joe Grieme 12 6'1

21 Kyle Keller 10 5'11

24 Trevor Dillard 11 6'0

31 Clay Maintz 12 6'2

Returning starters: None

Starters lost: Ryan Below, Kelby Brown, Jake LeGrand, Andrew Puchbauer, Kolt Metje

Last year's record: 17-10

Postseason result: Lost to Leopold 50-49 in district semifinal

Last year's leaders:

Points: Ryan Below (23.5 ppg)

Rebounds: Below (14.3 rpg)

Assists: Kelby Brown (4.2 apg)

Team Outlook

Four of the five starters for last season's Oak Ridge basketball team graduated in the spring. The fifth moved a couple months ago.

There isn't much help returning from the bench, either.

"We lost such a huge percentage of everything," Oak Ridge coach Adam Stoneking said. "The biggest one is I don't bring back a single player that has hit a 3 at the varsity level. I could be wrong, but I looked at my stats, and I didn't see one. That's a tough one, when you've lost basically 100 percent of your shooting."

Making is tougher is the fact that all-state standout Ryan Below, a four-year varsity starter, is also gone from the interior.

"We're really going to slow it down, a little bit more ball movement as opposed to maybe stuff off the dribble," Stoneking said of his team's offense. "We don't want to stall. It's like I tell the kids, 'We don't want to finish the game 15-10.' We don't want to get to that because when you play good teams you can't hold them. Even by stalling, they're going to turn you over. We just want to make sure that we don't get into 70-point games. I told them that if the other team scores 70, it's unlikely that we won that ballgame."

Seniors Jacob Seabaugh, Clay Maintz and Joe Grieme will be counted on to lead this year, and junior Nathan Bolin and sophomore Steven Masterson will play the guard positions.

"We talked to them about when players leave, and you move up to a new grade level or you're moving into varsity, it's important not to try to replace somebody," Stoneking said. "... If you're replacing, you're taking over a spot that a good player had the year before. I don't need you to be him. Don't go out there and start trying to do things that he did well. Do things that you do well."

The Blue Jays will continue to play a match-up zone on defense, but they've created a new emphasis.

"One thing we've really talked about doing this year that's kind of our goal is try to lead the area in charges attempted and hopefully charges taken," Stoneking said. Hopefully we can make up for a loss of athleticism by playing a little bit smarter on the defensive end."

District breakdown

Defending Class 1 state champion Scott County Central and last year's runner up Leopold left District 2 this year, but rivals Oran and Advance both joined the district after years in Class 2.

"It's one of those things where you lose Scott County and Leopold and you gain Oran and Advance, so I don't know really if that's good," Stoneking said. "It's not like you're excited.

"It's always going to be tough. They can put you anywhere. ... Most of the time it doesn't matter, they could switch them up eight different ways and you're still going to have to be a good team to win districts. Most of the time the only thing that really changes is where you're going to go. Around here in Class 1 basketball when you get into districts you're not going to get three easy games. If you're a top two seed you may get one, and then after that you've got to be prepared for probably a state-ranked team in either the semifinal or the final."

Looking back

The Blue Jays finished 17-10 last season, but with almost all of the production gone there's not much to carry over to this season.

Below averaged 23.5 points, 14.3 rebounds, 5.2 steals and 5.1 blocks last season while Jake LeGrand, Kelby Brown and Andrew Puchbauer were all capable of scoring outside.

"It's definitely going to be a team-effort kind of thing," Stoneking said of this year's team. "We're not going to have one guy going out there every night and scoring 15, 20 points. And if we do, it's probably not shooting at a high percentage. It's probably going to be a different guy every night."