Last season, the Capital City Cavaliers were a team built on streaks.
Win four games in a row, lose six of the next seven. Win three in a row, then drop the next three.
This year, the Cavaliers are looking for consistency.
“It’s all been mindset, there’s enough talent and ability to have a very, very successful season,” Capital City boys basketball coach Darrin Young said. “It’s just breaking down and educating and empowering them on those finite moments of what mental toughness looks like.”
The Cavaliers open the regular season at 7:15 p.m. today against Rolla in the Rolla Shootout, then have 10 days off before they play in the Sullivan Tournament.
“In that first game, what I’m really looking for is can we do a very good job of controlling the things that we can control,” Young said. “We tell them that every day, every practice, before every game, ‘It’s your attitude and your effort, regardless of what happens in the game.’”
That attitude and effort will look to improve on a 12-13 season, highlighted by the program’s first win against Jefferson City and a win on the team’s first Senior Night. The Cavaliers averaged 56.3 points per game on offense and gave up 59.4 last season.
But even with those highlights, the Cavaliers were left wanting more in the playoffs after ending their season with a loss to Jefferson City in the first round of the Class 5 District 7 tournament for the second consecutive year.
“Since we’ve been in existence, we’ve been knocked out the first game of districts,” Young said. “Our hope is to try to win, obviously, a district game this year and try to hopefully get in the state tournament.”
This year, seniors Colby Gates and John Hightower, as well as junior Nehemiah Hamilton will lead the Cavaliers as they reach for those goals.
“Colby has been great and consistent for us, John Hightower has been that as well,” Young said. “Those two and then Nehemiah has taken on a pretty big leadership role as well. The point of emphasis though, is just understanding the importance of being consistent. … You can’t be a leader three days out of the week and then have two bad days. Every day, we’ve got to move with and gotta grow in some small facet or capacity. Because you’re never going to catch up to the competition if you’re still going one step forward, one step back.”
The trio will lead a lineup with two spots still up for grabs. Young said senior Hayden Carroll, junior Aman Kesete, sophomore Brooks Horton and junior Phillip Richardson are all in the mix for the final two starting spots and the first couple of bench rotation spots.
“(Richardson) got nine rebounds in two and a half minutes in the (Battle) Jamboree,” Young said. “Now, anybody that sees that kind of stat line, you realize he has got to play at some capacity. I don’t know what yet. I’m hoping in these next two days of practice, I can have a very concrete formula of who needs to go where and what makes sense.”
Young added sophomore Beau Harris has a chance to be part of the rotation, as does junior Shaun Adams.
Capital City’s tournament and showcase schedule looks mostly the same, with the Cavaliers going to the Winter Showcase on Dec. 10 at Blair Oaks, the Norm Stewart Classic on Dec. 15, the Great 8 Classic from Dec. 28-30 and the California Tournament from Jan. 9-15.
But some changes to the schedule have Young excited.
“We added Lutheran: St. Charles, we also added Monroe City and then we get to go play Hogan Prep, which I’m excited about,” Young said. “And Grandview. We’re getting to play some teams from other parts of the state.”
As the season gets started, Young said the team will carry the mantra of “We, not me.” He said he wants the players to focus this year on keeping a strong mindset and staying in the moment.
“What makes basketball tough is you don’t have time to process your mistakes,” Young said. “Football, if something doesn’t go right, you’ve got 20, 30 seconds in between each play. Where as in basketball, if you turn it over, you’ve got about a half a second to think about what happened and get back on defense.
“It’s just those kinds of things that we’ve been focusing on. It’s very little tactical basketball skill stuff, it’s just understanding what mindset, what changes do I need to make to my game to be successful for the team?”