Because tryouts were so recently, head coach David Breitenbucher said the team hasn’t had as much time to practice as he would have liked. But according to Breitenbucher, the players have been doing their best to prepare for their upcoming game against Burnsville.

“The first few games of the year are always really interesting, just because I feel like we could practice for another three weeks and we still would struggle to be totally ready for it. We just had tryouts last week so we’re doing everything we can to prepare for the game but there’s just not enough time to implement everything you need to do,” Breitenbucher said.

According to senior Anthony Odens, players have been working on their stamina during the games and have had some scrimmages to prepare them for games.

“We’ve had practice every day and we’ve done a lot of conditioning at practice so we don’t get tired during the games. Also on Saturday, we had some scrimmages to practice,” Odens said.

Another helpful factor is the team’s chemistry and how well everyone gets along, according to junior Cole Ewald.

“Our strength is we have good chemistry, we work really well together, we have good shooters a good big man,” Ewald said.

Breitenbucher said in addition to the closeness of the team, the players’ work ethic will lead them to success in the game against Burnsville and those later in the season.

“The guys are a pretty close group, which I would definitely say is a huge strength of ours. I think that’ll carry us a long way and I like the work ethic that they showed in practice,” Breitenbucher said.

Ewald said the team’s current weakness is defense and that it needs to focus on that more during practices.

“Our weaknesses are playing defense, we need to practice that more so we can get better at it,” Ewald said.

According to Breitenbucher, the team overall has a strong coaching staff and talented players. He said he is looking forward to seeing where that talent will take them this season.

“I have a really good coaching staff, we’ve got a good group of boy so for me personally I just think that it’s going to be a good season with our coaching staff and our players,” Breitenbucher said. “It’s a really good mix of guys so I think that’s what I look forward to the most.”

The game against Burnsville will be  at 7 p.m.Nov. 30 at Burnsville High School.