With less than three weeks until Newton plays its exhibition game the Rams are trying to get the chemistry back that they had this summer. The summer saw the team go 21-9 despite sophomore standout Darvin Jones missing 10 games.

“Our kids that are now juniors and sophomores outplayed a lot of our seniors this summer. The message I kind of felt like was sent by them to the seniors was, “You better watch out if you wanna play,” and I was impressed by that,” Rick Rasmussen, Rams’ head basketball coach, said.

Practice began Monday and the Rams have been keying in on fundamentals and discipline while slowly implementing the defensive and offensive schemes.

“What we’re trying to find out right now is, what is the best way to play with this group so that we can be successful? At the same time there are some principles we can’t cave on, like fundamentals, discipline, knowing our roles, playing to our strengths and not asking guys who to do something they can’t do,” Rasmussen said.

Jones is considered the only lock to be a starter from last year’s 21-8 region runner-up squad. Donovan Grubb, a forward, led the team in scoring this summer while averaging around 13 points per game, but only started a couple of games last year.

Antonio Smith and Josh Tukes look to be competing for the starting center position. Both are about 6-foot-5 and they have different skill sets that Rasmussen said different situations could determine when they play.

Rasmussen said his two seniors Tarik Rogers and Keondre McKibben will compete to see who starts at forward. Rogers started some games last year and McKibben was the sixth man.

Coach Ras’ added that Jaquan Simms and Marvin Boireau are both potential starters at the guard positions. Simms is a slasher who can shoot it from behind the arc and Boireau is sort of a tweener of the guard and forward positions, but Rasmussen says that he’s a really good defender.

There are some players who are trying to make the team that weren’t with the Rams this summer. According to Rasmussen, to play for him you must have three things: good attitude, good grades and good play.

“(I’m) looking for someone who’s gonna buy-in, someone who’s hungry to be part of something special, someone who’s gonna do it the Newton way and not buck the system. I’m not looking for a rebel to ruin my team’s chemistry. We had great chemistry this summer,” Rasmussen said.

“You need some guys with a chip on their shoulder to compete at our level, especially if you’re undersized.”
Rasmussen said his opening game starters are still not concrete and multiple positions are fairly open. He added that he’s trying to figure out who’s going to take those leadership roles.

“There are some principles we won’t budge on regardless of personnel. We want to be fundamental and disciplined. We’d love to run and play fast, but you’ve got to be more talented than someone else to really go fast. If you push the ball and let the other team high-fly and don’t get back in transition and give up a bunch of dunks, you can’t win,” Rasmussen said.

“We’d like to play fast, it just depends on who you’re playing. We feel like we want to be able to play all speeds,” Rasmussen added. “We don’t want to be a team where we only score if we push it in pressure. Then the games when you get killed because you push it in pressure, what are you gonna do? What do you have for an adjustment if you don’t know how to play all ways? So we feel like you got to be versatile.”

Defensively, Rasmussen wants to be versatile as well. He said there’ll be teams where they can pressure and then there will be teams when they’re going to want to mix up their defenses and try to keep them off balance and not just do one thing.

Rasmussen said, “We’re gonna have to really gel, because you can’t have any second guessing. You’ve got to really want it. You’ve got to really stick together in the highs and lows. The season is a long journey and there’s going to be all kinds of valleys and peaks to get there.”