Hall boys basketball to take advantage of athleticism

The Hall boys basketball team doesn’t have much height, with no player taller than 6-foot-3, but the Red Devils hope to overcome that size disadvantage with athletic ability.

Especially on the defensive end.

“We don’t have a lot of size, but we have some long and athletic kids,” Hall coach Mike Filippini said. “We are hoping to pressure the ball more and try to cause turnovers. We have been working hard on pressure out of both man and zone defenses. We are athletic. It’s the most athletic team we’ve had in a while, so we are going to try to take advantage of that and speed teams up and try to force turnovers.”

Offensively, Filippini said the Red Devils don’t want to rely on outside shooting as much.

“Our offensive philosophy is to try to not take as many 3-pointers as in years past,” Filippini said. “We’re trying to take better shots, be aggressive on our dribble drive and take higher percentage shots. Getting to the hoop has been a big emphasis in the preseason.”

Junior Braden Curran and seniors Wyatt West and Jack Jablonski, who all saw significant playing time for last year’s team that went 12-16 and 3-7 in the Three Rivers Conference East Division, are expecting to be the Red Devils’ top scorers.

Curran averaged nine points, six rebounds and two steals per game last season, while West averaged eight points and three rebounds, and Jablonski contributed four points and three rebounds per game.

Juniors Greyson Bickett, Aiden Redcliff and Chace Sterling and sophomores Luke Bryant and Noah Plym also are expected to be key contributors.

“It’s a great group of kids to coach,” Filippini said. “They give great effort and have been extremely competitive in preseason practices. They have fun, get along and have been very receptive to everything we’ve asked of them so far. We usually are not blessed with 6-5/6-6 kids, so our kids know they are going to have to give great effort in order to have any success. My first speech to them was that we are not here to coach their effort, that’s expected if you want to play. All the kids have been great so far with attitude and effort.

“We are really excited to coach these kids and see what they can accomplish this year.”

The Red Devils are hoping to bring home their first postseason hardware since 2003.

“Our goal every year is to win a regional,” said Filippini, who is 362-341 (302-290 with the boys team, 60-51 with the girls) entering his 26th season as a head coach at Hall. “We keep telling our kids to make our decisions hard on who we play. They’ve really done a great job with effort and trying to get better each practice.”