By Bryan Bloodworth
NORMAL – Inexperience would be the operative word for Normal West High School’s boys basketball team early in the year.
The Wildcats graduated a pair of four-year lettermen, including leading scorer Josh Robinson, but 15-year coach Brian Cupples isn’t ready to concede anything.
PODCAST: Listen to Cupples interview here
“There’s a lot of inexperience,” he admitted. ‘We have five sophomores and three juniors on our roster, so we have eight people who have never really played varsity basketball. There are just a lot of question marks, but we should be a much different team by the end of the year.”
“Of course, we want to win, but we just want to have the big picture in mind and try to get better at something every day. I want to let our seniors have a good experience, but with five sophomores on the roster we want to get those kids as much experience as possible.
“I know early they might go out there and fall on their face, but we’re just going to clap our hands and tell them to keep trying to figure it out.”
Leading the sophomore class is 6-foot-9 transfer Francis Okoro, who is rated the top sophomore prospect in the state and among the top 25 in the country.
“People have to remember he’s just a sophomore still learning,” said Cupples. “Our goal is to get better every day. We want to find something to get a focus on in practice, whether it be timing on set plays or whether it be post plays or foot work on the catch, just something to get better every day with.”
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
