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(TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Graham post player Nikolas Wankowicz begins his dribble at the free throw line as he looks to drive to the basket for a layup during a game earlier this season. -
(TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) The Graham Steers players gather around head coach Kyle Wood during a timeout in the team’s game against Breckenridge earlier this season. -
(TC GORDON | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Graham’s Bryce Martin pushes the ball ahead of him after making a steal and transitioning to offense during the team’s game against Breckenridge last week.
Only a few games into the season, the Graham Steers varsity basketball players have learned a lot about themselves.
Through three games as of this writing, the team is 1-2 with some contrasting results in each of the contests played so far. The team started the year with a 51-40 win over Millsap, took a tough 41-12 loss to Bowie due to offensive struggles and then dropped a close match-up with nearby Breckenridge 49-45.
Though the results have varied, there’s still a lot of basketball left to play. Not to mention the fact that the team isn’t at full strength yet.
Due to the football team’s long playoff run that’s still ongoing, the Steers’ basketball season has started without at least one key player in quarterback and point guard Ty Thompson. There may be others from the football squad who join the basketball team soon, so the Steers on the hardwood have been filling in where needed.
A handful of the current varsity players are sophomores with a small group of juniors and a lone senior in Meldi Romeral. The juniors as of right now are Nikolas Wankowicz, Tyler Allen and Jaden Neal, and the rest of the squad are sophomores.
With a large collection of youth, both in school class and varsity experience, there’s bound to be mistakes and opportunities for learning. The team has seen that through three games, but head coach Kyle Wood knows that will benefit each of the players individually and the team as a whole later on.
“It’ll get to crunch time and we’ll struggle a little bit. But like those guys coming out of football, they’re obviously going to know how to win, and so they’re going to only benefit us,” Wood said. “There’ll be a learning curve a little bit (for everyone), but these guys are getting minutes that are just extremely valuable.”
Through three games of the season, Graham has tried to establish an offensive flow in each game with varying levels of success. The Steers have been building chemistry in practices and scrimmages, but there have been times where it’s possible to see things aren’t quite there yet.
Players do a good job of sharing the ball with each other and trying to find the open shots on the court, whether that’s down low with the big players or out behind the arc and in the mid-range. Graham has a number of solid shooters on this team, and though the shots haven’t fallen consistently, there are a few guys who can light up the scoreboard when they’re on.
One thing Wood has been focusing on with this group is overcoming adversity and not getting down about lack of results. In each game this season, there have been shooting struggles and times when the offense looked out of sync.
But in the Millsap game, for example, despite falling down early with the Bulldogs taking a lead after a hot start, the Steers slowly but surely worked their way back and eventually went on to get that first win of the season.
“Some guys haven’t been in those spots, but I thought they stepped up and did a good job. They’re a pretty coachable group of kids, good young men, and so I was proud of the way they handled that kind of adversity,” Wood said. “They were calm and just slowly over the next three quarters…we basically outscored (Millsap) probably by around 15 to 20 points I’m guessing. I was proud of them, but we got a long way to go.”
Defensively, the team has fared well, with the highest point total allowed coming in the 49-45 loss at Breckenridge. But even that score was primarily thanks to a lot of free throws the Buckaroos shot late in the game as Graham fouled to try to get back into it.
The Steers have worked both man and zone defenses while trying to figure out what works best for them. Similar to the offense, due to the youth and amount of experience, it will improve with time and repetition.
But through three games of the season the team is looking solid. After a match-up Tuesday, Dec. 3 at Eastland, the Steers will compete in their first tournament of the year at Breckenridge over three days from Thursday, Dec. 5 through Saturday, Dec. 7.
District play doesn’t begin until Jan. 10, 2025, so the team has plenty of time to grow, bond and get ready for the remainder of the season. The Steers will look to build off last year’s success, which saw the team make the playoffs but fall in the bi-district round.
