It’s always a bittersweet time of year when the Greyhounds’ season comes to a close.\u00a0 This year, it may be a bit more bittersweet.\u00a0 There are a lot of folks from this team who have been very important to me, and who I’ve really enjoyed watching through Upward.<\/p>\n
The first guy I’m going to mention is Spencer Irvin<\/strong>.\u00a0 He’s been on of the foundational pieces of the last two teams.\u00a0 He’s fun to watch, and he’s fun to coach.<\/p>\n The second guy I’m going to mention is Jonah Wittenberger<\/strong>.\u00a0 He’s been with the last two teams as well.\u00a0 What really struck me about Jonah is how much he grew in confidence this past season.<\/p>\n But now, I get to the four guys who started with me as 2015 Bruins<\/strong>:\u00a0 Jeremy Anderson<\/strong>, Justin Slade<\/strong>, Ryan Slade<\/strong>, and C. J. McGuire<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Jeremy was our scoring punch with the Bruins, and he’s brought much of that mentality to the Greyhounds.\u00a0 I felt he was going to break out at some point;\u00a0 he’s got that kind of offensive potential.\u00a0 It was fun having him back.<\/p>\n The Slade Brothers and C. J. have been with me the past two years.<\/p>\n Ryan Slade<\/strong> is one of my go-to guys when I need defense and ball pressure.\u00a0 He’s kind of stuck playing the same position as Spencer and Luke, and as a result, he doesn’t get as much time as he deserves.\u00a0 But I love what Ryan brings to the team.\u00a0 I make fun of him for not having clean hands (for committing fouls), but then again, my hands were never that clean, either.<\/p>\n Justin Slade<\/strong> had an incredible set of games, earning him two game balls.\u00a0 Justin grabbed the lion’s share of minutes at the point guard spot.\u00a0 Justin is tough as nails, and he leaves every ounce of energy on the floor.<\/p>\n And then there’s C. J.\u00a0 Of all the players, C. J. is my guy.\u00a0 He does the unappreciated stuff.\u00a0 He knows the plays and the sets and understands the purpose behind the plays.\u00a0 He’s always blocking someone out, or setting a pick, or doing all the things that don’t get appreciated except by coaches.\u00a0 I’m so proud of how far C. J. has come since those early days as Bruins.\u00a0 I can’t take all the credit;\u00a0 he had Candace Seeve<\/strong> and Aaron Mutnick<\/strong> in 4th grade, Coach Steve Sachs<\/strong> in fifth grade, and had a good run with Taylor Sirois<\/strong> this past season.\u00a0 But I claim C. J. as my guy.\u00a0 It was him who I had the most fun coaching this past season.\u00a0 And he was once again selected as the best sportsman.<\/p>\n It’s hard letting players go;\u00a0 it really is.\u00a0 Some of them, especially, are very important to us as coaches.\u00a0 But it’s part of the process.<\/p>\n One of those guys who has been so important for such a long time is Patrick Smith<\/strong>.\u00a0 Patrick recently moved to Texas, where he will be working at Bell Helicopter – a division of Textron Inc.\u00a0 I’m going to miss Patrick;\u00a0 he has been a great friend.<\/p>\n And soon begins the Upward season – and this year, without main league director Bill Sparkes<\/strong>, who tragically passed away a few weeks ago.\u00a0 The Greyounds will be contributing to Bill’s memorial fund based on how many points we scored in the Show-Me State Games.<\/p>\n The results of the games weren’t too much to our liking;\u00a0 we lost the four games we played, although we did receive a forfeit from one team.\u00a0 I still have stat totaling and film analysis to do, but for now, I’m just going to think on some guys who’ve been very important to me.<\/p>\n And there is light for the future as well.\u00a0 Next year’s team figures to return Temi Ogungbade<\/strong>, Landon Tarwater<\/strong>, Addo Meiners, and Luke Sachs<\/strong>.\u00a0 That’s a good group.\u00a0 In addition, most of my 2017 Wildcats<\/strong> will be eligible, plus, Taysir Yalaoui<\/strong> will be a third grader.\u00a0 Exciting times!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s always a bittersweet time of year when the Greyhounds’ season comes to a close.\u00a0 This year, it may be a bit more bittersweet.\u00a0 There are a lot of folks from this team who have been very important to me, and who I’ve really enjoyed watching through Upward. The first guy I’m going to mention … Continue reading “Reflecting on the 2018 Greyhounds”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180\/revisions\/181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/houndblog.joev.com\/HoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}