Zalma Boys Basketball Preview

Conference: Mississippi Valley

Coach: Bryant Fernetti, 3rd year

District: Class 1 District 3

Schedule:

Date Day of Week Opponent Location Time

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

December 11, 2014 Thursday East Prairie Home 6 p.m.

December 12, 2014 Friday Naylor Home 6 p.m.

December 18, 2014 Thursday Greenville Away 6 p.m.

January 6, 2015 Tuesday Bell City Home 6 p.m.

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

January 12, 2015 Monday Puxico Home 6 p.m.

January 16, 2015 Friday Oak Ridge Home 6 p.m.

January 20, 2015 Tuesday Advance Home 6 p.m.

January 23, 2015 Friday Richland (Essex) Away 6 p.m.

January 27, 2015 Tuesday Meadow Heights Home 6 p.m.

January 30, 2015 Friday Marquand-Zion Away 6 p.m.

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

February 10, 2015 Tuesday Chaffee Away 6 p.m.

February 12, 2015 Thursday Scott City Home 6 p.m.

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

February 17, 2015 Tuesday Leopold Home 6 p.m.

February 19, 2015 Thursday Risco Away 6 p.m.

Roster:

No. Player Year

4 Jacob Steinberg 10

5 Charles Freeman 10

10 Morgan McGregor 12

11 Cole Shelby 11

14 D.J. Hankins 12

15 Luke Robertson 11

21 Brian Ely 10

22 Scott Robinson 9

23 Caleb Hankins 10

24 Logan Borders 10

25 Alex Steinberg 11

30 Brendan Cato 11

31 Christopher Lombeida 12

32 Brent Overbey 11

33 Dallan Stotts 9

34 Peyton Ford 10

35 Andrew Hovis 12

50 Robert Vernon 11

Returning starters: Cole Shelby, Brent Overbey, Andrew Hovis, D.J. Hankins, Christopher Lombeida

Starters lost: None

Last year's record: 1-20

Postseason result: Lost to Eminence 70-53 in a district quarterfinal

Team outlook

In his second season as Zalma's coach, Bryant Fernetti believes his players are finally beginning to grasp what he expects from them.

"It's important, not only in the game, but you have a lot better practices and get through things in practice a lot more quickly because they know what to do and what to expect," Fernetti said. "It makes everything go a lot more smoothly.

"... Once they got used to what we were trying to do, I think you saw a lot of improvement, but it takes time just like anything else. That's one thing that's been nice, to not have to really re-teach hardly anything this year just because everybody is back from last year. We're a lot further along right now than obviously we were last year."

Fernetti said his players showed improvement last season, mostly due to just becoming better all-around.

"I think they're just learning how to play a little bit better. They've gotten used to the speed and just how physical varsity basketball is," Fernetti said. "Just being able to run an offense and defense has improved. Those are the little things we want them to do. You can tell they've gotten better and better, and you can definitely tell that early on in practice.

"They got a lot better at rotating defensively. A lot of times they just kind of try to play zone. I tried getting them to play some man-to-man, and they did a better job. ... They pretty well know how to play offense, so what we're really focusing on is trying to get better on the defensive side of the basketball."

The Bulldogs return all five starters from last year's team, including Cole Shelby, who Fernetti believes "can step up and be a leader" this season.

"There's just an obvious difference when he's on the floor and when he's not," Fernetti said. "He's a kid that obviously gets the team going and gets anywhere we need to get into. He pushes the ball real well, does a good job of throwing the ball up the floor on offense, and then on defense, he's one of our better on-the-ball defenders. He can put a lot of pressure on the ball, and he's extremely quick and fast. He just kind of makes our team go."

Zalma also returns starters D.J. Hankins, Andrew Hovis, Brent Overbey and Christopher Lombeida to this year's team.

"I just see a lot of the kids that are involved with the cross country are kind of stepping up and trying to push each other and push the rest of the team," Fernetti said. "This year I've seen a lot of kids try to motivate each other a lot more than just me having to try and yell at them the whole time. That's something I like to see because I'm sure it gets old with me just trying to motivate them every day."

Fernetti said he wants to see his team win a tournament game this season.

"I think we're capable of winning more than just one game in a tournament, but we've got to get something rolling there," Fernetti said. "... I think coming off last year's season, one of the things I'd like to see us do is be the team that made the biggest increase in win total. I think that's something we're capable of doing. Just kind of making that stride for our program would be big."

District breakdown

Leopold joins the Bulldogs in Class 1 District 3 as School of the Ozarks heads to District 4.

The rest of the field features Bunker, Eminence, Lesterville, Marquand-Zion, South Iron and Summersville.

"We're kind of in the spot where we play a lot of teams out west. Eminence and South Iron are the two names that everybody knows. I kind of like it just because it's something different," Fernetti said. "We're playing teams that you might not know as much about. I kind of like that because kids aren't going to go in with the mindset of knowing each other. That can kind of influence the game."

Zalma was ousted from last year's district tournament with a 17-point loss in the first round to Eminence, which went on to claim the district crown.

"We put on a good showing, and I think that gave our kids a lot of confidence coming into this year," Fernetti said.

Looking back

The Bulldogs finished last season with a 1-20 record, but Fernetti saw a more competitive team late in the season.

"At the end of last year, I thought we actually played some of our better basketball," Fernetti said. "We finally got everyone back healthy the last few games. We didn't win those games at the end of the year, but we played a couple really good teams and we played them pretty well. We were really just working on trying to push the pace, push the ball down the floor and also get better at putting pressure on other teams defensively, and that's something that we really look to do and carry over this year."

-- Trent Singer