With the benches filled with young and inexperienced talent, the North Sunflower Academy Lady Rebels and Rebels had plenty of growing pains this past season on the hardwood. Lady Rebels Head Coach Jeff Andrews relied heavily on his junior varsity-level players to fill holes in the varsity roster, as did Rebels Head Coach Anthony Rivera. With the scoreboard not showing progress in the win column, each coach has seen exponential growth of their players throughout the season.
“Basically, we’re really young,” Coach Andrews said. “We ended the season with only one high school player, one 10th grader.”
And one thing the coach preached and the team picked up on and put into place – don’t quit.
“I really want to give credit to the girls for hanging in there,” Coach Andrews said. “I’ve even had a bunch of compliments from coaches, saying our team still played hard. They never quit. And it would have been easy just to fold up their tent and go home, but they didn't. They stuck it out. I'm really appreciative of that. We’ve got a good new class of eighth graders. And they're going to have a good new class of juniors because that's where it's got to start. We’re going to get this thing turned around.”
The Lady Rebels had three high school players but one left the team and one hurt her knee, requiring surgery, leaving the team quite shorthanded. He leaned heavily on his younger players and Taelor Harper picked up the mantle and ran with it.
Taelor Harper, an 8th grader, scored 148 points on the year in junior varsity and 123 points in high school. And that’s with Harper only playing two of the four quarters in varsity games. JV players are limited to playing six quarters maximum on game day.
“She could easily have 150, even 200 points in the year. She’ll have four more years of high school ball,” he said.
Coach Andrews is now focused on the off-season workouts for the team. But that may be limited due to the athletes playing multiple sports.
‘We're going to start trying to put that in place and, of course, get them in the gym and start shooting year-round just on their own. I told them they've got to be disciplined enough to be able to come in and do that on their own because we just don't have enough coaches sitting there with them and getting them in the gym and dribbling and working on their game.”
And for the second year in a row, Coach Andrews is ready to pass the head coaching baton.
“We're definitely going to be looking for a girls coach,” he said.
And NSA will stay in the same conference but the MAIS 3A District 1 will have a new look. West Memphis and DeSoto are moving out. The conference will consist of Indianola Academy, Regents, Tunica and North Sunflower.
On the boys’ side, Head Coach Coach Anthony Rivera has been preaching and his “disciples” have been listening and working hard to rebuild the Rebels basketball program.
“I had one senior (Bryce Redwine) and he missed the majority of the season being sick with pneumonia,” Coach Rivera said. “We took our bumps and bruises this season but we finished on a positive note to let me know that we can make a push next year.”
He noted that this season “was a good learning experience for everybody. I learned a lot about myself as a coach. The biggest thing that I learned was stick with your morals and your guns. We had a situation where we played DeSoto and they weren't as good as we were. And I didn't let up on them. We beat them bad. And it was because the hype of the game, surrounding the game, getting the opportunity to beat a DeSoto, instead of being humble in the situation knowing that they're young, it's like we're young, and just let the game play out. I was still pressing in the fourth quarter and we were up 40-something to 12. I turned around in the semifinals and got beat by the same score. That was a humbling experience. You’ve got stick to your guns and don’t let the game predict how you're going to coach.”
Looking ahead to next season, Coach Rivera sees a more “solid squad” coming back.
“I watched our confidence grow. Our junior varsity guys weren’t intimidated in JV games because they had to play varsity games night in and night out,” Coach Rivera said. “We have to get stronger and better. Hopefully, we’ll get in some camps this summer and keep practicing. Sophomore Omarion Williams, a great kid with a lot of raw talent who didn’t know much about basketball, averaged a double-double (points and rebounds.) He was determined against DeSoto. He had 27 points and 20 rebounds. He’s going to be the key to our team’s success next year. I have to put the right pieces around him. He was our offensive lifeline this year. Adam Haney, our freshman guard, will be a great talent in the near future. Those two guys will give me the push we need to grow this program because they love basketball.”
