Boys' basketball season preview
Head Coach Pat Behan enters his second season as head coach of the Saint John’s boys’ basketball team, led by seniors Casey Morsell, Devon Dunn, and Jalin Abbott.
Coach Behan was encouraged by the team’s work leading in to the season. Coach Behan said, “The team has had a great preseason over the past three months along with four scrimmages, and they have been preparing by getting work done both on the court and in the weight room along with conditioning.”
On speaking on last year’s season versus the upcoming one, he said that he thinks the team will definitely step up offensively and maintain their strong defense as they have some more depth this year, and that they have have a good mix of both youth and veteran experience.
Casey Morsell is one three seniors on this year’s team. Morsell is definitely ready for his upcoming senior and final season. He feels prepared as he believes the team has been going hard in practice and has been getting each other better, and feels that the preseason has been extremely beneficial. Morsell said, “There’s no one game I’m looking forward to, with it being my last year, each game I play is going to mean a lot to me because it is most likely the last time I play them again.”
He believes that the team as a whole is going to work well together this year as well. “Our chemistry is very high, making this the closest SJC Team I’ve played on,” Morsell said.
Senior forward Jalin Abbott, who will play basketball at St. Thomas Aquinas College next year, spoke about some of team’s strengths and weaknesses. For strengths, he said, “One strength of ours is that we compete with each other everyday in practice and on the court.” But he believes their greatest strength is their depth.
Abbott also mentioned one area where he feels the team needs to improve. “Our main deficiency is being fully focused for 32 minutes of the game. We struggle with starting halves,” Abbott said. However, he added that that depth always allows them to pick their game back up.
The team is currently 4-3, most recently suffering two extremely close losses to rival Gonzaga and the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. However, this is just the start of the long season that lies ahead. The team can use all the support it can get, so make sure to come out to the games this year and support the Cadets.
