Experience, new head coach ready to lead Wildcat basketball in 23-24

Louisburg’s Luke Hill is one of five seniors on the Wildcat basketball team this season as they open play at home tonight against Tonganoxie.

The Louisburg boys basketball team will have a little different look to it this season after losing its leading scorer and rebounder from a year ago.

The Wildcats will also have a new leader on the bench in head coach Ben Doll. Despite some of those changes, Louisburg returns nine players that either started, or saw major varsity minutes a season ago.

It is that experience that has helped Doll’s transition be a smooth one so far.

“It has been really good,” Doll said. “We started by not having to make any cuts on the JV and varsity level, which was good. We were able to get into practice sooner and they have done really well so far. We have thrown a lot at them because it is a new system. We have had some really good practices and the jamboree we had was good for us too. I feel pretty good and I am hopeful we can get off to a good start before the break.”

The Wildcats feature five seniors that will help lead the way this season as they try to improve off an 8-13 finish a year ago. Guards Luke Hill, Brady Hickey, Nathan Parker, along with forwards Brock Vohs and Jaymes Melton, will look to help the Wildcats get off to a good start.

Doll, who took over from former coach Ty Pfannenstiel, has liked what he has seen out of his senior class so far.

“They are going to be really important,” Doll said of his seniors. “We have the right number of seniors and we are going to rely on them. Luke is recovered from his injury, and even though he hasn’t really played high level basketball for 11 months, he has done a really good job at practice. Excited about all of them and we have a really good junior class as well. It really helped when Coach Pfannenstiel gave a lot of those JV guys some varsity minutes last year so they know what to expect.”

Juniors Conlee Hovey and Gavin Lohse will give the Wildcats some big minutes underneath the basket, while guards Myles Vohs and Luke Schultz will also play significant minutes throughout the season.

Although many players will be returning, the team will look a little bit different offensively as they have to replace an all-league player in Colyer Wingfield, who was their leading scorer last season. 

“The basic offense stuff is about the same,” Doll said. “Last year they had a really good player (Wingfield) that could score in a bunch of different ways, but we aren’t going to have that this year and we don’t need to have one guy do all that. That has been a little bit of an adjustment for them. 

“It wasn’t a bad thing for them last year because he was a really good player. The guys this year realize that we need to move the ball a little bit more and we will be better when we screen and come off screens, rather than just get the ball in our hands and create things that we don’t want.”

As important as the offense is, Doll knows the defensive end of the floor is just as important — if not more early on.

“Before the break, offenses won’t be very advanced and most teams will have some inexperience out there,” Doll said. “We need to be up in people’s business and pressure defensively and create offense off turnovers. I think defenses will be ahead of offenses and we have to be good defensively in order to take advantage of that. We want to play fast and be able to run. People enjoy watching an up and down game and players like that. We are going to go 9-10 deep to start the year, so that will allow us to pressure more and guys can get more minutes.”

A new rule for the high school level this year is the elimination of 1-and-1 opportunities at the free throw line. The new rule states each team will be given five fouls a quarter, and after that, each team will shoot two free throws and the team fouls will be reset after each quarter.

That change had led to different ways teams have approached those free shots going into the season.

“We have focused more on free throws in practice than we normally do at this point in the year,” Doll said. “Free throws are one of those things where you tell them they are important, but don’t do a lot with them in practice and you expect them to work on that on their own. We have had about 1 or 2 parts of every practice where we are doing different free throw type drills. I like to do them after we do something hard when they are tired. If we are up there hitting just 1 of 2 or 0 of 2, that is glaring and costly. You have to make free throws and I think a lot of teams around the state are treating them more seriously.”

Louisburg will try and get in the win column to start the season tonight as the Wildcats host Tonganoxie in a Frontier League matchup. Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. and Doll is knows his team has the potential to do good things this year.

“I just want to them to compete in every game,” Doll said. “There will be games where we are down, but we are going to have to keep fighting. I told them this at one of our team meetings recently, is that you just have to be playing your best at the end. You obviously want to win every game, but it is a process and we are trying to build something.”