The early stages of this season have been a bit of a struggle for the Chamois Pirates. They'll get their latest chance to improve Saturday in the Capital City Shootout.
When the Pirates play the Prairie Home Panthers at 2:30 p.m. at Fleming Fieldhouse, two teams with sub-.500 records will look to start turning things around.
"We're still figuring out our roles, plus getting people to understand what they're capable of," Chamois coach Kyle Burkett said. "We're even learning things like when's a good time to take a certain kind of shot.
"It's been a learning experience for us so far, but each game is better and things are coming along, whether we're winning or losing."
Both Chamois and Prairie Home were hit hard by graduation.
"They've got a couple pretty decent players - and two pretty good offensive players - but they're doing some rebuilding as well," Burkett said. "So I'm thinking it will be a competitive game."
Butkett added the Panthers have a few players who get to the basket very well, so team defense will be important.
"We're OK at times - I'm not going to say we're good at it by any means - but we've got some guys starting to defend pretty well," Burkett said.
On the offensive end, the Pirates are looking to get more people involved.
"We need to do a better job of playing team basketball on the offensive end," Burkett said. "We've got a lot of guys going one-on-one or some people standing back and watching our better offensive players. So we only have one or two carrying the load."