What has been a young crop of talent on the GMC Prep boys basketball team the past couple years should be ready to blossom this season as the Bulldogs prepare to hit the court.
The team is under the leadership of veteran head coach James Lunsford, who is entering his eighth season at GMC Prep.
“Basketball season’s always an exciting time,” Lunsford said while overseeing a preseason practice. “We’re in the process of developing a basketball tradition here at GMC and we’re excited about this season. We’ve got a great young team with only two seniors, so we feel like we’re going to be in the playoffs for a while.”
Last season the Bulldogs finished with a 12-10 overall record and 12-6 in region play. Though those numbers look solid to the average viewer, they weren’t enough to get GMC Prep into the state playoffs or even the region tournament after finishing tied for fourth in the sub-region.
“One of our problems last year was we finished with a good record, but we didn’t fare well against the power teams,” said Lunsford. “You’ve got to do that in our league. In fact, the first nine games this year are probably the most important because ranking is so important.”
Lunsford has a couple of really key players returning to this year’s team in juniors Malik Foston and Jalen Milner, who were the top two scorers last season. Foston led the way averaging almost 17 points a game while Milner added in more than 11. Foston will do it all for the Bulldogs as he will be looked upon to be a ball handler, scorer, and primary defender on the outside.
“He’s a better defensive player and he had a great summer,” Lunsford said of Foston’s improvement over last year. “His dad does an outstanding job with him during the summer. I think his game has improved, so he’ll do more things for us. But hopefully he’ll have to do less if we can get other people to contribute.”
Speed is expected to be a strength for this year’s GMC Prep boys, but the tradeoff there is 2017-18 Bulldogs are short on size.
“Size is going to be a problem for us,” the head coach said. “We’re not a very big team this year. We’re going to have to play a different type of defense when we play big people. One good thing about being in the league we’re in is we don’t usually play against a lot of big guys, so that’s going to help us. I think our biggest weakness is going to be size, but if we can handle that we’ll be fine.”
Lunsford and his coaching staff are working toward getting athletes coming from the school’s raider team, football team, and other extracurricular activities on the same page quickly because he believes the first half of this year’s schedule is the most important part if the team is going to make an impression on the GHSA’s power ranking system. The top 24 teams according to the power rankings make the state playoffs come February, but it will be tough sledding for the Bulldogs with schools like Wilkinson County, Aquinas and Stratford all in Region 7.
GMC Prep took one on the chin in the season opener against Mount De Sales, 68-32. The Bulldogs will be back in the saddle Nov. 29 at Lake Oconee Academy, but will not play their first home game within the friendly confines of the Cordell Events Center until Dec. 9 for a rematch against Mount De Sales.
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