The 2018-19 Triad boy’s varsity basketball team is pictured from left, front row, Justin Overholser, Layne Thompson, Drew Campbell, Austin Bails, Payton Oyer, Eli Carson and Greg Sizemore; second row, head coach Jason Malone, assistant coach John Millice, Dillon Nott, Jacob Simonelli, Andrew O’Neal, Jack Walls, Bryan Bundy, Batai Lease, assistant coach Eric Welty, assistant coach Jim Pond and trainer Brittany Necci.
For some coaches, numbers are never a problem.
Triad head boys basketball coach Jason Malone is one of those coaches.
The Cardinals have had impressive numbers try out for their basketball team for the past three seasons and this year was no different.
Triad will once again fill three rosters, three full teams with 37 athletes.
With all of these athletes wanting to play basketball at Triad, Malone said now he wants to bring success to the program.
“We have a lot of guys in our high school interested in playing basketball and have had close to 40 players in grades 9-12 try out over each of the past three seasons,” he added. “It’s probably the most popular sport at Triad in terms of numbers, but we have to somehow match interest with success.”
That success will be in the hands of Malone’s only returning starter Austin Bails.
Jacob Simonelli and Andrew O’Neal will join Bails as the only returning letter winners on the varsity squad.
Simonelli and O’Neal played in bench roles last season.
The trio will have large shoes to fill as Hadley LeVan, a 1,000-point scorer for the Cards, and Briley Harlan, who averaged 16 points per game, graduated.
Malone said that LeVan was a “once-in-a-generation” shooter, but believes he has the bench depth to play 10-12 guys who all can chip in points.
“For us to be successful, we’ll need contributions from a handful of guys each night,” said Malone. “They are capable of scoring between 8-12 points per game.
“We’re definitely going to be different this season without Hadley and Briley, but at the same time I don’t think opposing teams can just focus on trying to shut down one or two guys on our team.”
Part of the benefit of having so much depth is there will be no drop in play due to the similarity in athletes he has waiting on the bench.
“A lot of our guys have similar size and skill sets so we won’t have any drop off when we sub our starters out of the game,” said Malone. “Depth will not be an issue and we’ll need a lot of guys to contribute.”
With a change in team dynamic, Malone is trying to foster a new mindset of toughness this season.
“We’re trying to get our guys to embrace a culture of toughness,” he said. “We are inexperienced and need to understand that we’re going to have to work really, really hard everyday and get better fundamentally.”
That toughness will be needed as the Cardinals compete for an Ohio Heritage Conference North title this season.
Malone believes they will have to make their way past West Jefferson, West Liberty-Salem, Fairbanks and Mechanicsburg to have a chance at the championship.
“I think the OHC North is going to be extraordinarily tough every night,” Malone said. “This season is going to be a physical and mental challenge and we’re trying to prepare for the grind.
“We’re not in any position to look too far ahead and think we’re anywhere near a championship-caliber team.”
The Cardinals will start their season with a non-conference game against Graham on Dec. 4.