GREEN BAY – The Notre Dame boys basketball team had a breakthrough season last year taking their team to a 21-7 overall, 13-5 conf. record, good enough for second place in the FRCC, after struggling in recent years to find a winning season.
The Tritons are looking to keep that momentum going this season and despite losing several key players from last season, head coach Brian Bobinski said he is hoping that their athleticism carries them far.
However, the athleticism of his team has also proved a hindrance as several players got caught in the overlap between seasons as the Tritons football team advanced to the WIAA State Championship.
“I’m looking forward to seeing our team. We had four varsity kids at practice on Day 1. It will be another week or so before we actually get our team back and then we’ll see how it all fits together. We’re excited about the kids we have. We have a lot of good athletes who are on the football team that is doing so well. We are just patiently waiting to be able to start up full force,” said Bobinski.
Though the Tritons are going into this season without the help of leading scorers, Andrew Rader (13.8 ppg), Adam Guyette (11.6 ppg) and Drew Siudzinski (10.3 ppg), Bobinski said that he has several players he feels are going to take the leap this season and help the team find wins.
“From a scheme standpoint, we had to change a little bit. We had a 6’10” kid (Rader) — that changes the way you play a little bit. Now we have to structure things a little bit differently since we don’t have that type of size. We are definitely going to be more athletic. We’re a bit smaller but we’re more athletic top to bottom, so we’ll see some adjustments to how we play, how we defend, rebounding — things that we didn’t have to think about last year and now we have to think about a lot,” said Bobinski.
“We basically have four returning contributors that scored a good number of points. We have our twins, AJ and Austin Hendrix (6.8 and 7.5 ppg), and then we have our senior point guard Leo Weber (9.9 ppg) who has started working for us as an interior player, as well Jack Warden (5.5 ppg) and a ton of other kids — some who played a little bit here and there last year, or on JV last year. We really have no idea who is going to emerge. We’ll kind of see how they come out of football and what kind of shape they are in health-wise. Some of them haven’t touched a basketball in three months, so it will be a bit of an acclamation process, but we’ll get used to it. We certainly want to play really hard and we want to have physicality that lends itself to football and basketball kids. We definitely want to be a balanced offensive team where we can move around and lots of different players can have an opportunity to play.”
A key contributor this season according to Bobinski will be Leo Weber.
According to Weber, one of the team’s biggest strengths this season will be leaning into their athleticism.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how we can bond together and play hard. I’d like to see how far we can go and how many wins we can get,” said Weber.
“We lost some height, so rebounding will be hard. We just need to make sure we move the ball well and play good defense.”
Weber also said that he feels confident in the abilities and work ethic of the players that will have extensive roles on the team this season.
“Ty Baumgartner is a newer player but he’ll for sure make the most of his minutes. We’re also looking for the twins and Jack Warden, along with myself to step up as well and expand our roles from last year,” said Weber.
One of the main focuses that Weber said the Tritons need to lean into this year is their depth and well-rounded versatility.
“Definitely playing as a team because we don’t have as many ‘star’ players, I would say. We just need to focus on sharing the ball and working well together,” said Weber.
After opening their season against Neenah, the Tritons will travel to take on Seymour on Thursday, Nov. 4.
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