The basketball program at Southwest is trying to keep their chins up after being brought to a halt for most of the games this season.
Boys head coach Mark Rabbitt believes the team has a chance to prove to other schools that they’re just as good if not better.
“Losing is not easy for anybody, but during practice, 99 percent of the time we try to become better and show we’re going to win some more games,” he said.
Girls head coach Rick Rhoades has been helping the team size up their competition by scouting the other teams.
“I figure out their weaknesses and then I give them a scouting report on whatever their good at,” Rhoades said.
As for team motivation, Rhoades lets the girls do their own thing.
“They pump themselves up,” he said. “I usually talk to them before the game about strategy and at the six minute mark they pump themselves up. Do their chant or play music, I honestly don’t know exactly what they do to get ready for the game.”
Rabbitt likes to be very honest with his team before and after games.
“[Blue Valley] Northwest, [Blue Valley] North and Sumner [Academy] all beat us by a lot,” he said. “We’re pretty honest with our guys and each other. The likelihood of us winning a lot of games isn’t very good, but we haven’t had anyone else destroy us.”
The varsity and junior varsity teams consist of three seniors, two juniors, nine sophomores and three freshmen.
“The younger guys are going to make us improve and make us better over the next few years,” Rabbitt said.
One of the sophomores on the team is Jake Novicoff.
He understands that not every game is going to be easy to win, but he knows what the team has to do in order to compete.
“No one likes losing, but we have to keep practicing and we know we’re going to get better and become great,” Novicoff said.
He also realizes their opponents look down on them when they go into a game.
“We’re always the underdog,” he said. “We’re a new school, so we just have to go out and work even harder.”
The young talent that is on the team is getting a lot of good minutes in varsity basketball games.
“We didn’t back down one bit, our approach was to compete and be a successful program,” Rabbitt said. “The sophomores and some of our juniors have the opportunity to create something better over the years.”
Rabbitt believes that over the next couple of years, the underclassmen that are all playing up on varsity will quickly become great and they will improve to make a very good basketball team.
“I tell them how it is and where we are,” Rabbitt said. “That’s part of the reason we beat Miege.”
The boys and girls basketball teams have been trying to improve on the little things and will try to overcome more and more throughout the rest of the season.