Every summer, it is a brand new year for the Centralia boys basketball team.

Centralia at Higbee Photo Gallery

While it is the first chance for the new team to play together, as is usually the case, the Panthers have a new head coach on the court. Brandon Crites, who spent the past five seasons at Hallsville, led Centralia to about a 60% winning percentage through June, according to him, in his first time with his new team.

Centralia finished its summer schedule by winning one of two games on Friday at the Higbee Shootout. Varsity won two of three games the previous day at Central Christian College of the Bible in Moberly and three of four on June 24 in Harrisburg. 

Crites said he has had about five or six practices with his new team on his new home floor, and some kids have had to split time with other sports as well. Centralia played three out of four days last week, and on that fourth day, some kids had football practice. Having multiple-sport athletes is great, he said, but they will need more time to implement his system.

“With the way I know how to teach it, it requires a lot of reads and decisions and making those reads and decisions when you’re going at a frantic pace,” Crites said. “It’s been a lot of learning on the fly. Today, there were four kids that are probably going to be varsity kids that weren’t here so it gave opportunities for other guys to play. I thought they all did a nice job.”

The Panthers show much dedication to split time between sports, but Crites said he has also noticed their selflessness and toughness. He said he knows for sure they will play hard from the beginning of next season.

Crites said as soon as the Panthers learn “to play off two feet offensively, we’re going to get 20 percent better,” meaning Centralia is playing too off-balance to make decisions. He said he has seen improvement in that area and loves these kids’ potential. 

“Athletically — size, strength, jumping ability — probably the most athletic group that I’ve had in my career,” Crites said. “We’ve just got to work on the basketball things.”

Ethan Ross, Hunter Hull and Anthony Ford are a few of the returning varsity names that have all of the aforementioned qualities and have impressed Crites so far. He said he expected to see positive things from them because of how much he’s seen them play before but has been surprised by some with more playing time this summer. Cal Romine is “a really good communicator, a good defender and a great athlete,” and Anthony Young has stuck out for similar reasons.

“I could go down the list because everybody has done something well,” Crites said. “Everyone’s going to fit in. Part of it in the summer is finding out what everyone’s function for our team is in order for us to play well offensively. Everybody’s going to be a star in their own role, and I know they’re all going to be willing to accept whatever their function is whenever we figure it out.”

Centralia’s next scheduled game is at 3:45 p.m. July 10 in Harrisburg when it plays a team from Belgium.