The Christmas break is still on for North Sunflower Academy basketball but the sanitized gym will soon come alive with practice.
Members of both the girls’ and boys’ teams took part in a mission trip this week to Branson, Missouri with girls’ assistant coach and Drew Baptist Church minister Hunter Goodin.
The teams will be looking forward to the new year and some stiff competition as conference play gets going.
First up will be a January 5th matchup with DeSoto School on the Rebels home court.
That will be followed by a Thursday home game with West Memphis followed by a Saturday game with Macon Road on the road.
“They are the number three ranked team in the state right now,” Lady Rebel Head Coach Jenny McCullough. “They are a good team both junior high and high school, they are the team to beat in our division. We’ve got to be prepared no doubt about it.”
This season, McCullough hit a milestone with her 500th win (400 varsity and 100 junior varsity.)
Over her 28-year head coaching career, she explained each cupboard was pretty bare to start but she overcame huge odds to build a winning chemistry and tradition at each coaching stop.
“The thing I feel good about is none of those teams that I took over had a lot of wins. They had maybe won one or two before I got there,” Coach McCullough said. “The (500) wins aren’t much in comparison to what other coaches have. But I feel good about the fact that our coaches and players all worked so hard to turn the programs around that we became a part of them. That’s the best part about it to me. We were able to leave them better than we found them. Everywhere I’ve been we had to build from the ground up but the good Lord rewarded our faithfulness with some success.”
Rebel Head Coach George Roberson has been hard at work to fine tune team chemistry and find some more wins.
“We’ve got DeSoto coming out of the gate and then West Memphis will be a tough opponent,” Coach Roberson said. “We’re disciplined enough to play with both of them and enough to beat them. I think we just need to work on our discipline of playing the game. We just found our rhythm in our last game before going on break.”
Roberson has the luxury of having plenty of talent to choose from on his bench and has been playing quite a few players each outing.
With three full-time starters, he has two starting positions that rotate among his talent.
In addition to chemistry, the Rebels are finessing their fundamentals and skills close to the basket.
“We need to work on our techniques in the paint, so we don’t pick up so many fouls,” he said.
NSA hits the home floor at 4 p.m. for their matchup with DeSoto School on Tuesday.
