St. Vincent Boys Basketball Preview

Conference: Jefferson County Activities Association -- Small Schools Division

Coach: Bruce Valleroy, 22nd year

District: Class 2 District 3

Schedule:

Date Day of Week Opponent Location Time

December 1-6, 2014 Monday-Saturday Rolla "Duke Herbert" Invitational Crystal City TBA

December 16, 2014 Tuesday North County Away 6 p.m.

December 18, 2014 Thursday Leopold Home 6 p.m.

December 26-30, 2014 Friday-Tuesday Winter Warrior Classic Valle Catholic TBA

January 5, 2015 Monday Bismarck Away 6 p.m.

January 6, 2015 Tuesday Jefferson (Festus) Away 6 p.m.

January 9, 2015 Friday Crystal City Away 6 p.m.

January 12, 2015 Monday Oak Ridge Away 6 p.m.

January 16, 2015 Friday Oran Home 6 p.m.

January 19, 2015 Monday Valle Catholic Home 6 p.m.

January 27, 2015 Tuesday Ste. Genevieve Home 6 p.m.

January 31, 2015 Saturday Perryville Perry Park Center 3:30 p.m.

February 4, 2015 Wednesday Windsor (Imperial) Home 6 p.m.

February 6, 2015 Friday St. Pius X (Festus) Away 6 p.m.

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

February 13, 2015 Friday Grandview (Hillsboro) Home 6 p.m.

February 16, 2015 Monday Fredericktown Away 6 p.m.

February 18, 2015 Wednesday Kingston Home 6 p.m.

February 19, 2015 Thursday Meadow Heights Away 6 p.m.

Roster:

No. Player Year Height

10 Joe Whistler 11 6-0

12 Trevor Leible 11 6-0

14 Darren Ernst 10 5-10

20 Jordan Rellergert 11 6-2

22 Kaleb Schnurbusch 12 5-9

24 Jordan Buchheit 11 5-11

30 Trevor Lukefahr 9 5-5

32 Tyler Monier 10 5-9

34 Blake Hellman 10 5-11

40 Alec Brewer 11 5-10

42 Luke Wibbenmeyer 10 6-3

44 Tyler Unterreiner 10 6-1

Returning starters: Trevor Leible, Kaleb Schnurbusch

Starters lost: Kevin Mattingly, Alex Winkler Nathan Carroll

Last year's record: 7-17

Postseason result: Lost to New Haven 54-41 in a district quarterfinal

Last year's leaders:

Points: Nathan Carroll (14 ppg)

Rebounds: Alex Winkler (6 rpg)

Assists: Carroll (5 apg)

Team outlook

After two decades of leading the St. Vincent boys basketball team, Bruce Valleroy has gotten new experience the last two seasons.

"This is my 22nd year and last year and this year -- this is the least experienced teams I've ever had," Valleroy said. "It's kind of new for me, too, because I have been so fortunate over the years to have a lot of people coming back and a lot of people that might have not started but got a lot of minutes and a lot of playing time the next year, so they kind of stepped right in to the next spot."

The Indians started last season with six core players on varsity and have just one senior on the team this season. While the team is certainly working on improving its execution in practices, Valleroy's main concern is with his players' mindset.

"Confidence is what we're lacking right now, and I just think because of our numbers situation and our youth we need a leader to step up for us to build confidence day in and day out. I have seen it. I've seen it grow a little bit. It probably needs to grow more than what it's doing, but we just need the confidence, the leadership and the believing that we can play varsity basketball."

In addition to senior returning starter Kaleb Schnurbusch, five juniors, eight sophomores and six freshmen make up the St. Vincent program this season.

"Probably my best player in the program has never played high school basketball yet because he's hurt again, Valleroy said. "He's a sophomore -- Tyler Monier is his name. He tore his ACL in football, and so he did not get to play last year as a freshman. He would've started for us as a freshman last year. He would start again this year, but in the ninth week of the football season, he got a hairline fracture, but he's got mono now."

Valleroy said he hopes Monier can make his high school debut as the Indians' point guard by the middle of December.

"It's kind of like in baseball, bullpen by committee -- right now we're going to have point guard by committee until we get him healthy," Valleroy said.

The veteran coach hopes that as his players' confidence builds, their games will continue to grow.

"We're kind of keeping it basic, but we are adding things as we go along," Valleroy said. "I'm the type of coach who -- I'm not going to just do one thing. I'm not a coach who will play man-to-man every game no matter what the situation is. I kind of do situations on who we play, how we match up with people personnel wise. We'll mix it up during a game, too. We may not set in one defense the whole night. We'll mix it up. So when teams scout us or prepare for us, they've got to prepare for different things. And the same for us too, we have to prepare for different things. I do a lot of trying to match up how we match up with people and what we can do to be successful."

District breakdown

Valleroy was pleased to see that a move from Class 2 District 4 to District 3 meant seeing some familiar opponents.

"I will try to go scout all of them, and the funny part about it is four of those teams are on our schedule," Valleroy said of the Indians' district foes. "It kind of works out a little bit that I don't have to go too far to scout some of those people because Meadow Heights is on our schedule and Valle Catholic and Kingston and Bismarck, so I will have seen those teams throughout the year a little bit and kind of keep up with them and see how we match up with them. Valley (Caledonia), Viburnum and Ellington are the other schools in our district, so I'll go out to see them."

Looking back

The Indians finished 7-17 last year, and Valleroy said the team's goal is to win more games this year. While there isn't a lot of veteran experience, other than Monier, the majority of the players expected to contribute have at least saw varsity action last year.

"These guys all got some varsity time last year, so they got a taste of it," Valleroy said. "It's pretty well the same thing. You've just got to step up to that next level and most of these guys that we mentioned played varsity football this year, so they've had varsity experience in other sports. We just need that confidence, that build up and to believe that you can play with the people at this level. We're lacking that right now, but we're hoping each day we'll gain a little bit more."

-- Rachel Crader