Bringing back almost all of their starters this season, the boys basketball team is gearing up for another season with a now-experienced lineup and some underclassmen showing some promise. The team went 8-14 with only two of their starters having any varsity experience. Their season came to an end in a 55-58 loss in districts to a Plymouth Christian Academy team that was first in the Catholic League. They hope to go even further this year with an experienced all-senior lineup. They opened the season on the road with a win against Pinckney, 75-57. Leading the team this year is Lucas Nor ‘24, who had a great season last year combined with Nikola Sarcevich ‘24 and led the team in points last season. 

Nor  knows that even though the team is pretty young, they can go far. The starting lineup of Nor, Sarcevich, Alex Ye ‘24, Ben Formicola ‘24, and Isaac Hess ‘24 took last year to develop as a group.

 “I think this year specifically, the sky’s the limit,” said Nor. “The starting five has been playing together for a really long time now and we’ve gotten used to it now. We’re really confident that we can go far and not just win districts, but even win regionals and states.”

Another returning player on the starting lineup is Isaac Hess ‘24, who had a great season on varsity last year. He feels similarly to Nor about the team’s chances this year. 

“We can definitely win districts this year. We played one team in the offseason and we beat them, so we feel pretty good,” said Hess. “I think [winning regionals] is definitely possible. It gets tougher because we’ll play Riverview Gabriel Richard and they’re always really good.”

A big part of the team this year will be some younger players coming up to varsity. Andrew Wang ‘27 is part of the group expected to make varsity this season.

 “[Wang] will probably make varsity, he’s pretty good. He looked great this offseason,” said Hess. 

Head Coach Andrew Wright is ready for another good-looking season with this lineup that only graduated one senior last year.

 “The majority of our team is back, I think our top six shooters and rebounders are all coming back,” said Wright. “We didn’t lose the district game with Plymouth Christian by much, and they went all the way to the regional finals. We opted to play up into the second division, so that is even tougher because we’ll have to play Riverview who we haven’t beaten in a few years.” 

Another big factor for the team’s success is their size, as they find themselves being one of the smallest teams in the division

 “The only other team in the division that is the same size as us is Riverview, and everyone else is bigger than us. That’ll be a challenge, but I think we can deal with it.” 

It will be another tough opening few games for the Gryphons who are playing against some of the best teams in the divisions. “We put some Division I and II teams in our schedule to start, Pinckney, Adrian, and Skyline, so I’m not sure if the record will reflect the progress we made because the competition is so good. We’ll only grow from it,” said Wright.

Because of the experience of the varsity lineup, the rookies coming up, and the early competition, the Gryphons are looking to have a great season.

 “The competition is just gonna get tougher down the road,” said Nor. “If anything, that just gets us prepared for the bigger games way later in the season. The sky’s the limit.”